STATISTICAL COMPARISONS OF COMMUNITY CATABOLIC PROFILES

Comparative catabolic profiling using microtiterplates with multiple s ole-carbon-sources has become a popular tool for the comparison of mic robial communities with respect to their functional potential. However , the statistical treatment of such data has only been partially satis factory so far. In this paper, a new multivariate approach developed b y Lauter and coworkers [J. Lauter, Exact T and F tests for analysing s tudies with multiple endpoints, Biometrics 52 (1996) 964-970; J. Laute r, E. Glimm, S. Kropf, New multivariate tests for data with an inheren t structure, Biometrical Journal 38 (1996) 5-23.] is applied to this p roblem. Using replicate observations from every community in question, this approach allows testing for significant differences between comm unities. It is advantageous with respect to power and maintains the al pha-level. Discriminating carbon-sources are found according to weight ed factor loadings and univariate tests. Exemplarily, changes in micro bial soil communities due to rotting of plants are analyzed. Furthermo re, other statistical approaches from the literature are discussed. (C ) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.