Table 3.

DistLM results indicating the correlation between environmental parameters as a predictor of the microbial community distribution.

Environmental variables	Marginal test			Sequential tests
	Pseudo-F	P	Prop.	Pseudo-F	P	Prop.	§Cumul
Chlorine	3.75	0.001	0.19	3.757	0.001	0.19	0.190
Aspecta	2.84	0.002	0.15	2.65	0.001	0.12	0.31
Phosphate	2.002	0.011	0.011	1.59	0.014	0.07	0.38
Elevationa	2.20	0.014	0.12	1.46	0.028	0.062	0.44
SO4	2.30	0.007	0.12	1.32	0.099	0.55	0.50
Mud% <63 μm	1.97	0.018	0.11	1.38	0.082	0.05	0.55
Sand	2.11	0.01	0.11	1.23	0.217	0.04	0.60

Marginal test results are based on individual predicator variables. Sequential test results are based on the relative proportion when all variables are considered. P < 0.05 was considered as significant. Pseudo-F represented a multivariate version of fisher's F statistic and

^§Cumul represented the cumulative proportion of variance. All values are in mg kg⁻¹ unless specified.

^arepresent value degree. P values were considered significant at < 0.05 and are represented in bold.