The effect of localities
Regarding locality, Benjamin Constant had the most differentiated
community in all datasets (Fig. 4). The effect of localities was
significant (p < 0.001) and had a higher effect than the soil
layer factor in explaining the community composition in all datasets
(18S – R2 = 0.10, COI – R2 = 0.12,
and ITS – R2 = 0.11). In general, the pattern of
highest mean, number of exclusive, and number of indicator OTUs by
locality varied between markers (Table 3, Fig. 5). For 18S and ITS,
Benjamin Constant had the highest mean number of OTUs (Table 3) and the
highest number of exclusive OTUs (Fig. 5). Benjamin Constant also had
the highest number of OTUs considered indicators of this locality for
the 18S dataset (Table 3). Cuieras had the lowest number of exclusive
OTUs for COI and 18S, but had the highest number of indicator OTUs for
the COI datasets (Fig. 5). The majority of indicator OTUs at all
localities were saprotrophs, followed by a high proportion of OTUs that
could not be classified by their functional group (Table S2).