Diversity alpha-group significance, error: only numeric data is present in metafile

[Lisa_Crummett]

Hello. I have already successfully run alpha group-significance analysis with all of my data but I wanted to try running the same analysis with different segments of my data (only looking at certain days of the experiment) by using a filtered metadata file. I tried the command below to look at only days 2, 4, 6 and got the error message: "Plugin error from diversity: Only numeric data is present in metadata file."

I have attached my metadata file. Would you please let me know what I am doing wrong?

metadata_Exper.Day2-6.txt (337 Bytes)

qiime diversity alpha-group-significance
--i-alpha-diversity core-metrics-result/faith_pd_vector.qza
--m-metadata-file metadata_Exper.Day2-6.txt
--o-visualization core-metrics-result/faith-pd-group-significance_Day2to6.qzv

[Nicholas_Bokulich]

HI @Lisa_Crummett,

The error message says it all:

@Lisa_Crummett

Plugin error from diversity: Only numeric data is present in metadata file

Your metadata file only contains numeric data. alpha-group-significance is for comparing categorical data groups. Try alpha-correlation instead.

Good luck!

[Lisa_Crummett]

Hi Nicholas,

My data IS categorical, it is just coded with numerical values representing the different groups. I will change it to string values.

Thank you,
Lisa

[Nicholas_Bokulich]

@Lisa_Crummett

My data IS categorical, it is just coded with numerical values representing the different groups. I will change it to string values.

Ah I see. If you want to keep that encoding, you can specify whether those columns should be interpreted at numeric or categorical.

Good luck!