Fig 2. Bone bacteria at different time intervals.

Relative abundance of ASVs, summarised at phylum level, present in the unburied control bone samples and their relative abundance in the sediment and exposed bone fragments (sample IDs on the x-axis are given in Table 2). Plots are subset by both their environment and the exposure time. The three unburied bones exhibit almost no variation and are dominated by ASVs belonging to Proteobacteria, followed by Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes and Actinobacteria. Pretreatment had no significant effect on the variation of the bacterial community (p = 0.611, R² = 0.0200).