Fig. 2

Effect of treatment on bacterial ß-diversity. NMDS ordination plots of beta diversity in gut communities from juvenile (a–c) and adult brown trouts (d–f) based on Bray–Curtis distance comparing the respective control groups with each treatment. Colors represent the different sampling timepoints (t0 = pre-treatment, t10 = treatment, t14–t28 = post-treatment), while shape indicates to which group each sample belongs. NMDS stress values < 0.2 indicated that ordinations were sufficiently robust, providing a reliable representation of the original data. Pairwise PERMANOVA results for each comparison are indicated on each plot