# Balance interpretation confusion

**URL:** https://forum.qiime2.org/t/balance-interpretation-confusion/946
**Category:** User Support
**Tags:** gneiss
**Created:** [August 3, 2017, 9:47pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/balance-interpretation-confusion/946 "2017-08-03T21:47:57Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 5

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### Author: ![saatkinson](https://forum.qiime2.org/user_avatar/forum.qiime2.org/saatkinson/32/6074_2.png) [@saatkinson](https://forum.qiime2.org/u/saatkinson)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2017, 5:43pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/balance-interpretation-confusion/946/5 "2017-08-04T17:43:35Z")

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Hi @mortonjt,

It helps a lot! Thank you!

I have two clarification questions (sorry if they're redundant or silly, balances are a new concept to me).

1. Do you always used the smallest log ratio as the comparison group? In my case you compared to D15\_cntrl, which has the smallest log ratio. Is that the standard? For example, if D36\_cntrl had a negative log ratio would that be the group I compare everything to instead of D15\_Cntrl?

2. In the tutorial you say:

> [@Gneiss tutorial](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/gneiss-tutorial/932/1):
>
> In this particular case, the log ratio is lower in the patient group compared to the control group. In essence, this means that the taxa in the y0-numerator on average are more abundant than the taxa in y0-denominator in the patient group compared to the healthy control group.

This seems to be opposite of what you told me about my D15\_cntrl, D36\_cntrl/D36\_risp samples; that the higher log ratio implies more abundant taxa in the numerator than the denominator for the D36 samples. The tutorial says the opposite (that the lower log ratio are more abundant than the higher), is this a typo in the tutorial or am I missing a major concept?

Thanks,  
Samantha

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