Fig. 5.

(A) SEM showing the effects of multiple variables on the abundance of ARGs in sewage sludge. Numbers adjacent to pathway arrows are standardized path coefficient. Orange lines indicate negative effects and blue lines indicate positive effects. Solid or dashed pathways indicate significant (P < 0.05) or non-significant relationships. R² represents the explanatory rate of variance in ARGs and MGEs abundance by the model. Chi-square (χ²) = 0.217, degrees of freedom (df) = 3, P = 0.857, comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.956, goodness-of-fit index (GFI) = 0.999, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.02. (B) Standardized total effects (sum of direct and indirect effects) on the abundance of ARGs derived from the SEM. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)