Table 3.

Characteristics of the examples presented in this paper.

Example	SNP distance	Bootstrap support	Tree topology	Epidemiology, traceback, or compliance findings	Conclusion
Identifying the source of an E. coli outbreak	Supports	Supports	Supports	Supports	Match
Matching food isolates from one firm to environmental isolates from another firm	Supports	Supports	Supports	Supports	Match
Identifying a resident pathogen	Supports	Supports	Supports	Not applicable	Not applicable
Populations of environmental isolates can be very diverse	Neutral	Supports	Supports	Not applicable	Not applicable
Analyzing paraphyletic relationships	Supports	Neutral	Neutral	Does not support	No match
Evidence that isolates arose from the same source by WGS does not necessarily mean that they are linked	Supports	Supports	Supports	Does not support	No match