Fig. 2

Fungus acquisition leads to an increase in gut bacterial load and diversity. A: Relative bacterial loads based on quantification of the 16 S rRNA gene using ddPCR, depicted using all data points, which indicate the number of gene copies per individual termite gut or 1 cm³ piece of fungus comb. B: Chao1 richness based on the unnormalized 16 S rRNA ASV data for worker and soldier gut microbiomes as well as fungal combs for the three timepoints. Sample sizes provided in brackets after timepoints on the x-axis. Standard box and whisker plots indicate the median with the central line in the box, the first and third quartiles with the box, and the minimum and maximum of the upper and lower quartiles with the whiskers. Horizontal lines indicate statistically significant comparisons from TukeyHSD post-hoc comparisons and asterisks indicate significance levels: *p < 0.05 and ***: p < 0.001 (full results in Table S5)