TABLE 3.

Observed microbial richness and diversity estimates among the sampling sites of salterns of Siridao based on 97% OTU clusters.

Saltern operation phase	Nature of the sample	Sampling sites	OTUs observed	Shannon	Chao1	ACEa	Dominance	Buzas-Gibson’s Evenness
ISH	Brine	RP	810	5.26	1721	1818	0.017	0.239
		EP	809	5.23	2191	2291	0.016	0.231
		CP	568	4.07	1095	1175	0.074	0.103
	Sediment	RP	960	5.75	2221	2294	0.008	0.328
		EP	1083	5.76	2826	3036	0.010	0.294
		CP	983	5.70	2204	2231	0.011	0.306
PSH	Brine	RP	697	4.61	1795	1867	0.044	0.145
		EP	635	4.36	1555	1578	0.052	0.123
		CP	910	5.05	2267	2531	0.026	0.171
	Sediment	RP	884	5.48	2026	2060	0.013	0.272
		EP	958	5.54	2466	2552	0.012	0.266
		CP	590	4.76	1503	1633	0.021	0.199

^aACE, Abundance-based coverage estimator. The diversity indices were calculated after normalizing the sequences obtained across all the sampling sites at 4100.