Table A1.

Effect of sampling technique (egg swabs vs. eggshell pieces) on bacterial diversity and abundance.

	Band counting	Shannon index	Pielou's index	Similarity (%)	Gene copy (log)
Egg swabs	16.8 (±1.51; 10–23)	2.8 (±0.10; 2.6–3.1)	1.0 (± <0.001)	51.9 (±2.44; 20.2–83.0)	5.1 (±0.18; 4.0–5.7)
Egg swabs/eggshell pieces1	–	–	–	51.0 (±5.10; 20.4–72.6)	–
Eggshell pieces	15.6 (±1.17; 10–21)	2.8 (±0.10; 2.3–3.0)	1.0 (± <0.001)	43.4 (±2.12; 22.1–73.7)	6.4 (±0.48; 3.6–8.9)

Band counting numbers, Shannon index (diversity), Pielou's index (evenness), and similarity are based on DGGE band-matching surface, and gene copy (log) (abundance) based on qPCR. Results are presented with their average (± standard deviation; minimal–maximal values).

¹For the comparison egg swabs versus eggshell pieces, only the value of similarity is given. The analysis was run on paired data.