Table 5. Temporal variation of bacterial genera isolated from the ocular surface of control eyes of healthy horses at three time points.

Median relative percentages and ranges of bacterial groups, annotated to level of phylum, family and genus, based on sequencing of 16S rRNA.

Taxon	Day 0		Day 7		Day 35
Phylum Family Genus	Median *%	Range %	Median %	Range %	Median %	Range %	P-value **	Q-value ***
Proteobacteria	46.2	14.5–74.1	43.2	17.9–80.4	51.5	27.9–93.2	0.558	0.670
Acinetobacter	1.9a	0–5.9	0.7a,b	0.1–2.5	0.4b	0–2.2	0.017	0.226
Burkholderia	0a	0–0.2	0a	0–5.3	0.6b	0–34	<0.001	0.028
Unclassified Enterobacteriaceae	0a	0–1.4	0.3a	0–2.3	0.5a	0–2.6	0.037	0.273
Unclassified Acetobacteraceae	0a	0–0.5	0.2a	0–0.5	0a	0–0.3	0.045	0.0283
Firmicutes	27.0	7.3–44.1	28.7	6.8–42.7	21.1	1.7–32.9	0.124	0.397
Unclassified Ruminococcaceae	1.7a,b	0.2–10.8	4.2a	0.2–11.9	1.8b	0–8.6	0.028	0.245
[Mogibacteriaceae]	0.6a,b	0–2.2	0.8a	0–2.4	0.3b	0–1.5	0.002	0.064
Unclassified Bacillaceae	0.1a	0–1.9	0.3a	0–1.7	0a	0–0.9	0.040	0.281
Facklamia	0a	0–0.6	0.2a	0–0.5	0a	0–0.3	0.035	0.273
Coprococcus	0a	0–0.6	0.2a	0–1	0a	0–0.8	0.048	0.283
Actinobacteria	9.8	3.1–42.4	10.1	3.5–19	13.6	3.6–41.9	0.264	0.431
Brevibacterium	0.2a	0–2.7	0b	0–0.4	0b	0–0.9	0.001	0.049
Bacteroidetes	8.9	5.6–25.6	14.4	2.2–25.2	7	0.8–18.5	0.264	0.431
Unclassified BS11	0.1a	0–1.3	0.4b	0–1.5	0.1a	0–0.6	0.003	0.091
BF311	0.2a	0–1.2	0.2a	0–0.7	0a	0–0.6	0.020	0.237

*^a,b: Median values not sharing a common superscript differ significantly (p < 0.05, Dunn’s multiple comparison post-test).

**: P-values based on the Friedman test

***: Q-values adjusted based on the Benjamini & Hochberg False discovery rate