Table 2 Results of permutational multivariate analysis of variance (PERMANOVA) tests indicating if ASV beta diversity measures are significantly different for the tested variable based on Bray-Curtis and unweighted UniFrac distance metrics. Results reported for full dataset and within sampling periods for variables year, sex, and age. Asterisks denote statistically significant results of PERMANOVA with Bonferroni correction, p < 0.05. PERMDISP analysis results reported when PERMANOVA results significant. All tests conducted with 999 permutations.