Fig. 5

ASV richness at phylum, order, genus and species taxonomic levels across methodological combinations. (A) ASV richness by sampling Station. (B) ASV richness by abundance classification, with rare ASVs defined as ASVs with less than 0.1% relative abundance, per sample. For both (A) and (B), the taxonomic level is represented by different symbols. The ASV richness is illustrated in Log10 scale so that lower values could be distinguished; each panel further divided itself into four panes, allowing direct comparison of full-length and V4-V5 16S rRNA gene sequencing (columns) and Silva or GTDB databases (rows). In (A) the points were illustrated without centrality metrics, because each station included less than five distinct observations, while in (B) a centrality metric was used with boxplots, because the number of observations (n = 13 per independent group) allowed it. Nevertheless, the original points were plotted on top of the boxplots, so that it was possible to see the direct connection between (A) and (B). Note that some combinations presented less than 13 observations, which reflected samples without any species classified. The points were colored in different shades of blue, divided by depth: Surface (< 10 m); Middle (10–100 m); and Deep (> 100 m)