Alpha diversity indices of microbial communities from the 12 sponge species and seawater (SW).

<p>Community richness was estimated using observed species (S.obs), chao 1 estimator (S.chao1) and abundance-based coverage estimator (S.ACE). Community diversity was calculated using Shannon and Simpson indices. Analyses were executed with phyloseq package v 1.5.15 [<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0127455#pone.0127455.ref047" target="_blank">47</a>] in the R environment (<a href="http://www.R-project.org/" target="_blank">http://www.R-project.org/</a>) and plotted using ggplot2 [<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0127455#pone.0127455.ref085" target="_blank">85</a>]. Sample description is provided in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0127455#pone.0127455.t001" target="_blank">Table 1</a>.