Fig. 2.

Co-occurrence model showing bacterial taxa present within 12 paired nasopharyngeal (NPS) and middle ear fluid (MEF) specimens. Data (Cytoscape v3.2.1) [37] are presented for 12 children, and include a single NPS and MEF specimen per patient. Taxonomic assignment for each OTU is at the genus level, unless the OTU was not identified below the taxonomic order level (*). A cut-off of 1% abundance was used for visual differentiation between both specimen types. Bracketed numbers [NPS/MEF] and node sizes indicate the number of specimens that contain a specified OTU. Shared OTUs are visualized in the middle and connected by a line if the presence of an OTU in both specimen types was derived from the same patient (solid) or from different children (dashed). Specimen-specific OTUs are grouped at the genus or order levels to ease visualization