Pairwise comparisons of beta dispersion among individual dogs.

Tukey’s tests were used to detect statistically significant differences in beta dispersion between pairs of individual dogs. (CSV)</p

Demographic information of the dogs that provided stool samples.

Demographic information of the dogs that provided stool samples.</p

Shannon alpha diversity index of 20 canine stools samples in -20°C and -80°C storage for 12 months.

2A. Scatter plot of individual samples. 2B. Boxplots. The edges of the box represent the 25th and 75th percentiles. The whiskers represent the maximum and minimum values below and above the upper (75th percentile + IQR) and lower (and 25th percentile–IQR) fences, respectively.</p

Marginal mean (±SE) of the Shannon diversity index of 20 canine stools samples in -20°C and -80°C storage for up to 12 months.

Marginal mean (±SE) of the Shannon diversity index of 20 canine stools samples in -20°C and -80°C storage for up to 12 months.</p

Bray Curtis distances visualized with nonmetric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) plots of 20 stool samples in -20°C and -80°C storage for 12 months.

3A. Individual stool samples. 3B. Presentation by storage condition and timepoint.</p

Jitter boxplots of ASVs that differed significantly between time and storage conditions.

The edges of the box represent the 25th and 75th percentiles. The whiskers represent the maximum and minimum values below and above the upper (75th percentile + IQR) and lower (and 25th percentile–IQR) fences, respectively. Individual black dots represent individual dogs. (PDF)</p

Multivariate homogeneity of beta dispersions.

Beta dispersions were calculated from Bray-Curtis dissimilarity matrix to determine if variance in fecal microbiomes among storage conditions differed among individual dogs. The boxplots show beta dispersion in each dog with the upper and lower boundaries of the box represent the 25th and 75th percentiles and the horizontal line represents the median. The whiskers represent the maximum and minimum values below and above the upper (75th percentile + IQR) and lower (and 25th percentile–IQR) fences, respectively. The mean beta dispersion is represented by the horizontal red line.</p

Fecal DNA concentrations (ng/μL) across time and storage conditions.

1A. Δ Mean (±SE) log fecal DNA concentration (ng/μL) from baseline (i.e., baseline log DNA—timepoint log DNA) in -20°C and -80°C storage. Different italicized lower-case letters represent a significant difference (p 1B. Mean (±SD) fecal DNA concentration (ng/μL) of the 20 stools samples included in this study.</p

Features that varied significantly with storage time.

Features that varied significantly with storage time.</p

Features that varied significantly with temperature.

Features that varied significantly with temperature.</p