Fig. 4

Simulations predict sampling artefacts following losses of abundant taxa. The relationship between a microorganism’s simulated absolute abundance in a community (x-axis), and its apparent log10-fold change in estimated abundance following the simulated loss of a small number of dominant taxa (y-axis). Predictions from 10⁴ iterations of the simulation procedure are summarized using 2D hexagonal bins; darker colors indicate higher frequency bins. Positive values on the y-axis indicate that abundances are underestimated in the presence of highly abundant RSVs, leading to an apparent positive increase in measured abundances following the loss of these RSVs. A common expected sampling artefact, whereby the loss of highly abundant RSVs, drives an apparent increase in the abundance of rare taxa is visible