Measurement Error and Resolution in Quantitative Stable Isotope Probing: Implications for Experimental Design.

ABSTRACT: Quantitative stable isotope probing (qSIP) estimates isotope tracer incorporation into DNA of individual microbes and can link microbial biodiversity and biogeochemistry in complex communities. As with any quantitative estimation technique, qSIP involves measurement error, and a fuller understanding of error, precision, and statistical power benefits qSIP experimental design and data interpretation. We used several qSIP data sets-from soil and seawater microbiomes-to evaluate how variance in isotope incorporation estimates depends on organism abundance and resolution of the density fractionation scheme. We assessed statistical power for replicated qSIP studies, plus sensitivity and specificity for unreplicated designs. As a taxon's abundance increases, the variance of its weighted mean den

SUBMITTER: Sieradzki ET 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7566279 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature