Fig. 3: Opposite intertaxa correlations inferred from absolute and relative abundance data.

a, b Correlation networks of the ten most abundant taxa at family level. Nodes represent individual taxa and edges correspond to statistically significant (p < 0.05, R2 > 0.2) Pearson product–moment correlation between taxa across all samples. Colors indicate direction of correlation (red—positive, blue—negative), transparency reflects correlation strength. Labels on top of nodes indicate bacterial families as shown in Fig. 2. Pse Pseudomonadaceae, Sph Sphingomonadaceae, Flavo Flavobacteriaceae, Hymn Hymenobactereaceae, Methy Methlobacteriaceae, Coma Comamonadaceae, Cyto Cytophagaceae, Oxa Oxalobacteraceae, Micro Micrococcaceae, Spb Sphingobacteriaceae. Nodes are colored relative to the mean rank in the dataset (scale left, rounded rank in node). a Network based on scaled load data. b Network based on relative abundance data. c Correlation between plant-scaled Sphingomonadaceae and Pseudomonadaceae bacterial load. d Correlation between Sphingomonadaceae and Pseudomonadaceae relative abundance.