Table 4.

Comparison of alpha diversity measures among stool samples using the approximative Fisher–Pitman test stratified by individual sample IDs with 9999 permutations

	Observed	Shannon	Simpson	Fisher
Card vs. tube	< 0.001	<0.001	< 0.001	0.001
RT vs. − 80 °C	0.44	0.22	0.11	0.40
Tube (7 days at − 80 °C)a	0.001	0.47	0.96	0.001
Card (3–5 days)a	0.01	0.02	0.04	0.01
Card (7 days RT)a	< 0.001	0.02	0.06	< 0.001
Card (7 days at − 80 °C)a	0.002	0.01	0.02	0.001
Card (3–5 days)b	0.06	< 0.001	< 0.001	0.07
Card (7 days RT)b	0.52	0.24	0.05	0.55
Card (7 days at − 80 °C)b	0.56	0.07	0.02	0.54

^aComparison with tube at 0–2 days

^bComparison with tube 7 days at − 80 °C

Values italicized are signficiant with a value of p<0.05