Exploration of bacterial community classes in major human habitats

Table 1 Summary of community classes and their stability in human habitats

Habitat type	Habitats	Silhouette value	Clusters	Membership	Dominant genera	ARI for two visits
Type I	Posterior fornix	0.86	3	3/5/80	Gardnerella / Prevotella / Lactobacillus	0.57
	Mid-vagina	0.78	2	7/81	Anaerobic genera / Lactobacillus	0.58
	Vaginal introitus	0.66	2	13/67	Anaerobic genera / Lactobacillus	0.44
	Left retroauricular crease	0.6	3	6/14/158	Corynebacterium / Staphylococcus / Propionibacterium	0.56
	Right retroauricular crease	0.52	6	4/4/4/4/19/154	Neisseriaceae_Unclassified ^a / Corynebacterium / Pelomonas / Anaerococcus / Staphylococcus / Propionibacterium	0.47
Type II	Left antecubital fossa	0.30	5	2/6/7/28/30	Sporacetigenium / Staphylococcus / Ralstonia/ Propionibacterium / Corynebacterium	0.07
	Right antecubital fossa	0.37	6	3/3/4/6/8/61	Streptophyta / Corynebacterium / Staphylococcus / Streptococcus / Haemophilus ^b / Propionibacterium	0.16
	Keratinized gingiva	0.32	2	59/140	Prevotellaceae_Unclassified / Streptococcus	0.37
	Buccal mucosa	0.28	2	32/153	Haemophilus / Streptococcus	0.12
	Hard palate	0.25	2	10/183	Veillonella /Streptococcus	0.04
	Anterior nares	0.24	4	8/13/44/101	Moraxella / Staphylococcus / Propionibacterium / Corynebacterium	0.26
	Stool	0.25	3	15/66/128	Prevotella / Ruminococcaceae ^a / Bacteroides	0.26
	Tongue dorsum	0.18	3	35/77/94	NA
	Subgingival plaque	0.21	2	97/104	NA
	Throat	0.19	2	91/93	NA
	Supragingival plaque	0.15	2	97/111	NA
	Palatine tonsils	0.17	2	96/103	NA
	Saliva	0.14	2	89/93	NA

^aNeisseriaceae in retroauricular crease and Ruminococcaceae in stool are the dominant orders (not genera).
^bA heterogeneous group.
ARI, Adjusted Rand Index; NA, not applicable (indicator genera are not shown because of very low silhouette value).

ISSN: 1474-760X