Fig. 4

Agreement of GCN prediction tools in microbial communities, depending on the NSTI. a Agreement between 16S GCNs predicted by CopyRighter and PICRUSt (in terms of the fraction of variance in the former explained by the latter, R²) for non-animal-associated microbial communities, compared to the nearest sequenced taxon index (NSTI) of each community. Each point represents the R² and the NSTI of one microbial community sample. b, c Similar to a, but comparing PICRUSt to PAPRICA (b) and CopyRighter to PAPRICA (c). d–f Similar to a–c, but showing animal-associated samples. In all figures, linear regression lines are shown for reference. Pearson correlations between R² and NSTI (r², written in each figure) were statistically significant (P<0.05) in all cases. Points are shaped and colored according to the original study, as listed in the legend. Note the negative relationship between a community’s NSTI and the pairwise agreement of GCN prediction tools for that community. For a similar figure showing the spread of NSTDs in each sample, see Additional file 1: Figures S5. For detailed comparisons between tools on individual samples see Additional file 1: Figures S6 and S7