Table 2.

Results of Analysis of Similarities (ANOSIM) to test for significant differences in bacterial community composition (BCC) between stations (marine, mesohaline, oligohaline), fractions [particle-associated (PA) vs. free-living (FL)], and seasons (summer vs. fall/winter).

Sample	N	Factor	R	p-value	Significance
All	18	Stations	0.73	0.001	***
Summer	9	Stations	1.00	0.002	**
Fall/winter	9	Stations	0.78	0.003	**
Mar/meso	12	Stations	0.61	0.007	**
Mar/oligo	12	Stations	1	0.003	**
Meso/oligo	12	Stations	0.53	0.002	**
Summer	9	Fractions	0.19	0.035	*
Fall/winter	9	Fractions	0.41	0.001	***
Marine	6	Fractions	0.46	0.001	***
Mesohaline	6	Fractions	0.32	0.046	*
Oligohaline	6	Fractions	0.76	0.002	**
Marine	6	Seasons	0.36	0.011	*
Mesohaline	6	Seasons	0.90	0.001	***
Oligohaline	6	Seasons	ns	ns	ns

For stations, BCC of total bacteria was tested. For fractions and seasons, BCC of PA and FL bacteria were tested separately. R, explained variance. p-value, level of significance and ns, not significant (

^*p < 0.05,

^**p < 0.01,

^***p ≤ 0.001).