Fig. 3

Principle coordinate analysis (PCoA) separates north Italian N. caninum based on their MLMGs into clusters. Data from the present and a previous study conducted in cattle from northern Italy [31] were used for this analysis. The two dominant eigenvalues of a PCoA based on the allele-sharing coefficient separated all N. caninum-positive samples isolated from Piedmont (PMN) and most from Veneto-Trento (VEN), so that they clustered on the left side of the PCoA graph, while most of the samples from Lombardy (LOM) were located on the right side of the PCoA graph. Groups G1–4 (represented by circles with numbers 1–4), as determined by eBURST, were located clearly in separate positions. While G1–3 was found on the left side, G4 (exclusively Lombardy samples) was localised on the right side of the PCoA graph