Extended Data Fig. 3: Qualitative check of target gene amplification balance.

Target amplification balance for genes in synthetic community is plotted as a histogram on a log y-scale as a qualitative check of relative amplification efficiency. The X axis represents the fraction of the reads of each barcode group that represents the 16S rRNA gene (ie. barcodes in the middle of the x axis have half their reads map to 16S gene and half map to the target gene, barcodes on the far right contain mostly reads that map to the target gene and not the 16S gene). The distribution of ratios for low prevalence genes (ErmQ, tetW, highlighted in red) are biased towards target genes meaning that the target capture efficiency is high for those targets despite the observed low prevalence. Only cells that contain both 16S reads and at least one additional target gene are included.