Table 3. PERMANOVA pair-wise comparisons of bacterial community composition based on Jaccard dissimilarities of ARISA profiles.

		no dilution		serial dilution		initial dilution
Season	Comparison	t (perm)	p (perm) 1	t (perm)	p (perm) 1	t (perm)	p (perm) 1
spring	pH in situ vs. 7.82	1.7578	0.009	2.0402	0.008	1.4123	0.022
	pH in situ vs. 7.67	3.4604	0.014	1.4949	0.032	1.187	0.059
	pH 7.82 vs. 7.67	2.1161	0.014	1.7501	0.017	1.8286	0.008
summer	pH in situ vs. 7.82	1.38	0.043	1.7313	0.011	1.8089	0.006
	pH in situ vs. 7.67	1.7055	0.008	2.0209	0.011	1.5411	0.01
	pH 7.82 vs. 7.67	0.79417	0.836	1.2412	0.123	1.138	0.148
autumn	pH in situ vs. 7.82	1.7541	0.006	1.2752	0.12	1.179	0.083
	pH in situ vs. 7.67	2.0978	0.011	2.2008	0.008	1.1401	0.148
	pH 7.82 vs. 7.67	1.619	0.005	1.7405	0.012	0.86025	0.916
winter	pH in situ vs. 7.82	1.2116	0.163	3.3652	0.007	1.3223	0.051
	pH in situ vs. 7.67	1.3323	0.046	3.4765	0.01	1.3268	0.095
	pH 7.82 vs. 7.67	1.4745	0.009	3.3868	0.008	1.0803	0.259

¹Significant results (p (perm)<0.05) are highlighted in bold.

Displayed are pair-wise a posteriori comparisons of the factor ‘pH’ within ‘season’-‘dilution’ combinations, with at least 125 unique permutations per comparison.