~~~

 

Part I. Cluster top 30 genera based on traits similarity with gower distance

  

gower_dist <- daisy(clustrait,
                    metric = "gower")

clusfd.KM.cascade <- cascadeKM(gower_dist, inf.gr = 2, sup.gr = 10, iter = 100, criterion = "ssi")

 

Based on ssi index, 7 functional groups are suggested

 

 

The organisms generally belong to similar major groups, here is the traits composition for each cluster (999=NA):

 

Cluster 1. Heterotrophs: naked swimmers

 

 

Cluster 2. Autotrophs: floaters (diatoms)

 

 

Cluster 3. Heterotrophs: large siliceous (radiolarians)

 

 

Cluster 4. Autotrophs: small swimmer (haptophytes)

 

 

Cluster 5. Autotrophs: mesoplankton cyst producing (dinoflagellates)

 

 

Cluster 6. Autotrophs: floaters (diatoms, mainly unassigned. Possible merge with cluster 2)

 

 

Cluster 7. Autotrophs: small naked (including heterokonts, green algae, cryptophytes )

 

 

Part II. PCoA ordination applied to plot the 30 genera according to their gower distance, and visualize the cluster selection

 

 

The main 2 PC’s explain about 43%~ of the variation between genera

 

Part III. Each genera was assigned to a cluster. The relative abundance of cluster composition over 2 seasons was plotted based on OTU’s abundance