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. 2011 Nov 9;6(11):e27492. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0027492

Figure 3. α-Diversity measures for Bacteria (97% OTU level), Eukaryotes (98% OTU level) and Archaea (97% OTU level).

Figure 3

The boxplots indicate, as in Fig. 2, the medians, 1st and 3rd quartiles, and ranges (whiskers) of the data from 2003–2006 (<2007; n = 6) vs. 2007–2010 (>2007; n = 5) for Bacteria (Bact), Eukaryotes (Euk) and Archaea (Arch). The statistical results indicated are from either the two-sample t-tests (normal data) or Mann-Whitney tests (non-normal data). (A) Total richness (OTUs) per 1000 reads (to normalize for bar-code differences). The Bacteria also show a significant linear decrease (r2 = 0.75, p<0.01) over the 8 years. (B) Proportion of reads in top 50 dominant OTUs. The Bacteria also show a significant linear increase (r2 = 0.82, p<0.01) over the 8 years. (C) Shannon diversity index. The Bacteria also show a significant linear decrease (r2 = 0.82, p<0.01) over the 8 years. (D) Simpson diversity index. Note that the index should behave in the opposite direction of the other indices since it nears 0 as diversity increases. The Bacteria also show a significant linear increase (r2 = 0.86, p<0.01) over the 8 years.