# Alpha/Beta diversity plots and reporting specific samples/groups that show significant differences

**URL:** https://forum.qiime2.org/t/alpha-beta-diversity-plots-and-reporting-specific-samples-groups-that-show-significant-differences/28231
**Category:** User Support
**Created:** [November 10, 2023, 3:58pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/alpha-beta-diversity-plots-and-reporting-specific-samples-groups-that-show-significant-differences/28231 "2023-11-10T15:58:49Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 5

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![dfitzer1](https://forum.qiime2.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/7c8e57/32.png) [@dfitzer1](https://forum.qiime2.org/u/dfitzer1)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2023, 9:15pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/alpha-beta-diversity-plots-and-reporting-specific-samples-groups-that-show-significant-differences/28231/5 "2023-11-13T21:15:20Z")

</div>

Hello Hannah

Thanks for responding

> [@jphagen](#):
>
> However, looking at your data the replicates may be problematic. For Kruskal-Wallis, and most of the statistical tests in Qiime2, one of the key assumptions is independence across samples. Replicates have inherent dependance. You will need to work around this by creating models that account for dependance.

I am not sure what you mean by problematic. Do you mean they are not independent as they are in triplicate? Would you suggest the 3 replicates for each timepoint be combined? I thought I had read elsewhere that this was not advised.

> [@how to deal with technical replicates](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/how-to-deal-with-technical-replicates/19837/2):
>
> Hi, Ming! Currently I am analyzing a rumen microbiome as well wave. I am treating rumen fluid samples from different cows as biological replicates. I did not pool DNA in one sample, neither I merge them in my table. To perform any statistical analysis, or to get an overview of microbiome it is better to have replicates, rather than pool them together.

I could be misinterpreting this and your explanation.

Thanks  
David

---

_[View the full topic](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/alpha-beta-diversity-plots-and-reporting-specific-samples-groups-that-show-significant-differences/28231)._