Fig. 5: Visualization of enrichment of biofilm OTUs associated with treatments and time points.

Hierarchical clustering (Ward’s minimum variance method) organized statistically selected OTUs according to distributions of standardized (z-scored) mean relative abundance across treatments. OTUs that were both significant by linear mixed model and discriminant by random forest are displayed along the y-axis. Note the stronger similarity between selected OTU enrichment patterns at earlier stages of development compared with later time points. Later time points separate primarily according to benthic organism, and further cluster by time point within these groups.