ANCOM Volcano Plots

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Hi there - I would like some help understanding ANCOM and the volcano plots used for visualization.

I am potentially using it for differential abundance testing of bacterial species in gut microbiome samples taken from different host species - but I have 5 host species I want to consider. Can I use ANCOM to differentiate between 5 host species, or only two host species? In the case that I would like to compare abundance of bacterial species among 5 host species, would you recommend ANCOM or is there a better route for comparing between species microbial diversity?

Does anyone have any tips on using the taxonomy.qza files containing taxonomic analysis of samples alongside the ANCOM volcano plot and data to find out how genera are differentially abundant across the gut samples of species?

ANCOM is easy for me to se because it is compatible with the Qiime2 workflow and artifacts.
Any other resources on ANCOM would be appreciated!

Thanks in advance,
Johanna

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Hello Johanna,

Welcome to the forums! :qiime2:

You may have discovered these already, but here's links to the ANCOM part of the Moving Pictures tutorial and a really detailed discussion on ANCOM which covers several of the questions you ask.

Yes, you can use ancom to compare multiple different groups. Prior to that step, it might make sense to see which groups are significantly different with an anova test on a beta diversity matrix, as discussed here.

Take a look at these and let us know if you have any other questions!

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