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Jaccard, P. (1908). “Nouvellesrecherches sur la distribution florale.” Bull. Soc. V and. Sci. Nat., (44):223-270.

Significance tests

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5a. Choosing a variable to analyse

 

In the Alpha Diversity section, you already imported your nfcore/ampliseq results and converted them to an ampvis2 object. To have another quick look at your ampvis object:

Code Block
ampvisdata

 

As in the Alpha Diversity section, you need to choose a variable to work with.

You can view your variables as column names in your samples_table:

Code Block
colnames(samples_table)

 

Now enter the column name of the variable you want to analyse:

Code Block
group <- "Nose_size"

 

Ordering your variable

 

And once again you’ll need to order the groups in your variable. See the ‘Ordering your variable’ section in the Alpha diversity section for more details.

Choose how you want to order your groups:

Code Block
lev <- c("Small", "Medium", "Big")

Then run the following to apply the levels to your data:

Code Block
ampvisdata$metadata[[group]] <- factor(ampvisdata$metadata[[group]], levels = lev)

 

5b. PCoA plots and statistics

The overview section described (with links and references) the ordination methods that can be used to estimate and plot beta diversity.

Briefly, these are: Bray–Curtis dissimilarity, Cao index, and Jaccard similarity index. Each of these has strengths and weaknesses. It's up to you, the researcher, to explore the literature and decide which is the best index to use for your data.

Choose the ordination method you want to use to estimate and plot beta diversity.

Bray–Curtis dissimilarity is used by default ("bray") Change this to "cao" for Cao index, or "jaccard" for Jaccard similarity index.

Code Block
index <- "bray"

Now create the PCoA plot.

Code Block
p <- amp_ordinate(ampvisdata, type = "pcoa", transform = "none", distmeasure = index, sample_color_by = group, sample_point_size = 3, sample_colorframe = TRUE) +
scale_color_manual(values=c("Red", "Green", "Blue")) +
scale_fill_manual(values=c("Red", "Green", "Blue")) +
theme(text = element_text(size = 16))
p

Save your plot as a 300dpi (i.e. publication quality) tiff or pdf file:

Code Block
tiff_exp <- paste0("PCoA_beta_div_", group, "", index, "_samples.tif")
ggsave(file = tiff_exp, dpi = 300, compression = "lzw", device = "tiff", plot = p, width = 20, height = 20, units = "cm")

pdf_exp <- paste0("PCoA_beta_div_", group, "_", index,, "_samples.pdf")
ggsave(file = pdf_exp, device = "pdf", plot = p, width = 20, height = 20, units = "cm")

Statistical analysis

To compare the overall differences between groups within your chosen variable, a Permutational Multivariate Analysis of Variance (PERMANOVA), a non-parametric multivariate statistical test. test can be performed and similarly a pairwise PERMANOVA test can be performed to compare differences between each group.

The R-squared value represents the percentage of variance explained by the examined groups. E.g. if R = 0.23 then 23% of the total diversity is explained by groupwise differences.

PERMANOVA:

Code Block
# Need to remove rows (from ASV abundance table) with all 0 counts first
asvmatrix <- ampvisdata$abund
asvmatrix <- asvmatrix[rowSums(asvmatrix) > 0, ]
# Also need to transpose (samples need to be as rows, asv's as columns)
asvmatrix <- t(asvmatrix)
# Then generate pairwise distance matrix
sampdist <- vegdist(asvmatrix, method="bray")
# Subset samples table by samples in ampvis2 object (in case some were filtered out)
samples_table_filt <- samples_table[samples_table$ID %in% ampvisdata$metadata$ID, ]
# Use adonis function (vegan package: "Permutational Multivariate Analysis of Variance Using Distance Matrices") to run PERMANOVA on distances
pathotype.adonis <- adonis2(sampdist ~ get(group), data = samples_table_filt)
# Output the r squared and p values as variables
r2 <- pathotype.adonis$R2[1]
pval <- pathotype.adonis$`Pr(>F)`[1]

PERMANOVA is based on groupwise differences, thus cannot be applied to continuous data.R squared =

Code Block
round(r2, 2)

PERMANOVA significance (p) =

Code Block
pval

Pairwise PERMANOVA:

Calculate the pairwise PERMANOVA. This is a bit complex, as each group within the variable has to be compared to each other group in a variety of ways. Code comments (#) explain what each line of code does.

Code Block
# The combn function creates every combination of provided elements
# Below it takes all group names and combines them pairwise (2)
# Creates a matrix where each column = a combination
comb_pair <- data.frame(combn(unique(samples_table_filt[[group]]),2))
# Convert scores to relative abundance
# Use sweep function to divide ("/") each column (2) by its total (colSums)
comm <- sweep(ampvisdata$abund,2,colSums(ampvisdata$abund),"/")
# Using adonis function (vegan package: "Permutational Multivariate Analysis of Variance Using Distance Matrices")
tabstat_adonis <- c()
# Loop through each pair (i.e. column in 'comb_pair')
for (i in 1:ncol(comb_pair)) {
  # Pull out pair data
  # From samples table
  samples_table_SB_pair <- samples_table_filt[samples_table_filt[[group]] %in% comb_pair[[i]], ]
  # From ASV matrix
  asvmatrix_pair <- comm[samples_table_SB_pair$ID]
  # Transpose
  asvmatrix_pair <- asvmatrix_pair[rowSums(asvmatrix_pair) > 0, ]
  # Also need to transpose (samples need to be as rows, asv's as columns)
  asvmatrix_pair <- t(asvmatrix_pair)
  # Then generate pairwise distance matrix
  sampdist_pair <- vegdist(asvmatrix_pair, method="bray")
  # Use anosim (vegan): Analysis of Similarities
  x2 <- adonis2(sampdist_pair ~ get(group), data = samples_table_SB_pair)
  # Pull out just r squared and p value
  r2_adonis <- x2$R2[1]
  pval_adonis <- x2$`Pr(>F)`[1]
  # Combine into data frame
  tabstat_adonis <- cbind(tabstat_adonis, c(r2_adonis, pval_adonis))
  # Name vector with group combinations
  colnames(tabstat_adonis)[i] <- paste(comb_pair[[i]], collapse=' Vs ')
}
row.names(tabstat_adonis) <- c("R squared", "p")

Now output these results as a table.

Code Block
tabstat_adonis <- t(tabstat_adonis)
tabstat_adonis <- data.frame(tabstat_adonis)
tabstat_adonis

You can export this table as a csv file:

Code Block
write_csv(tabstat_adonis, paste0("beta_div_pairwise_PERMANOVA", group, "_", index, "_samples_.csv"))

Go to the next section: Community structure