Fig. 1.

Box plots showing the alpha diversities (measurement of species richness and evenness within a habitat unit) of: (a) the number of operational taxonomic units (OTUs) found in microbiome taxonomic profiling (MTP); and (b) phylogenetic diversity (abundance); (c) Pielou diversity (equity); and (d) Shannon diversity (measurement of richness and equity in the distribution of species) among the samples from Eliska. Bars indicate the median, and the hinges represent the lower and upper quartiles. In panel (a), there are no statistically significant differences between the two groups. However, in panels (b), (c), and (d), there are statistically significant differences between the two groups. (e) Unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean (UPGMA) clustering, and (f) principal-coordinate analysis depicting differences in taxonomic compositions of bacterial communities in Amblyomma gemma samples collected from Eliska's body and from the field. * indicates statistical differences between the two groups of ticks (Wilcoxon rank-sum test, p < 0.05).