Figure 2: Non-metric multidimensional scaling (nMDS) ordinations of Bray Curtis dissimilarity between the bacterial communities inhabiting shallow and deep corals (A). Beta diversity 3D PCoA plot based on Unifrac distance matrix. Superimposed on the PCoA plot are gray spheres indicating the most abundant bacterial taxa associated with shallow and deep corals. The sizes of the spheres represent the relative abundance of the taxon and the location of the spheres within the plot indicate sample-specific associations (B). Alpha diversity curves for Faith’s PD index comparing shallow and deep corals. Error bars in the figure correspond to one standard deviation out from the average (n = 3 biological replicates/depth) (C).