Fig. 1

Box and whisker plot displaying richness (total number of unique taxonomic units in a sample) observed at each site. The black bars in the box structures represent the median value, the bottom line of the box to the black line represents the first quartile and the black line to the outer box line represents the third quartile. The line extended vertically from the box (both on the bottom and the top) to the solid horizontal line, represents the extent of the area where outliers are found. Richness was significantly higher in oropharyngeal swabs (OP) compared to bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) (p = 0.018) and blood (p < 0.001)