Fig. 2

Estimation of microbial community structure based on experimental ribosomal counts (central column), estimated cell number (left column) and estimated biovolume (right column) in a single, exemplary dataset using allometric corrections based on Eq. 1. The dataset is from Roush et al. [22] and includes the subset of taxonomically assignable phototrophic bacteria from an endolithic microbiome on coastal marine carbonate rocks. Only three exemplary phototrophs are labeled, but full, taxonomically explicit distributional data are in Table S3 (see Additional file 3). For ease of comparison, results are graphically presented as relative frequencies, but absolute scales of areal abundance are indicated on the arrow to the right