Fig 2. Causal diagram illustrating the relationships between source type, location type, year of sampling, and the carriage of predicted plasmids and antimicrobial resistance genes in Escherichia coli isolates collected from wildlife, swine manure pits, and environmental sources in southern Ontario, 2011−2013.

Solid lines show directionality of proposed relationships between dependent and independent variables. Dashed grey lines show potential confounding relationships.