About the Authors

Richard Barrett-Jolley

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Methodology, Project administration, Software, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Institute of Life Course and Medical Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom

Alexander J. German

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Methodology, Project administration, Software, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

ajgerman@liverpool.ac.uk

Affiliation Institute of Life Course and Medical Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom

Competing Interests

AJG is an employee of the University of Liverpool, but his position is financially-supported by Royal Canin. AJG has also received financial remuneration and gifts for providing educational material, speaking at conferences, and consultancy work, all unrelated to the current study. Royal Canin had no involvement in any aspect of the current work including study design, data analysis, drafting the manuscript or the decision to submit the work for publication. RBJ is an employee of the University of Liverpool, whose salary is financially-supported by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). RBJ also receives a stipend from United Kingdom Research and Innovation for work as a panellist for the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). Neither HEFCE nor BBSRC had any involvement in any aspect of the current work including study design, data analysis, drafting the manuscript or the decision to submit the work for publication. There are no patents, products in development or marketed products associated with this research to declare. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.