Hi @Lisa_Crummett,
You mentioned that the bacteria X (some taxon) percentiles for your treatment1 category are as follows:
Min: 1
25th percentile: 84
50th percentile (median): 283
75th percentile: 825
Max: 3645
The interpretations of these values are as follows:
Min: in the table provided as input to ancom, of the samples in the treatment1 group, in the sample with the lowest count of sequences assigned to bacteria X, one sequence was observed that was ultimately assigned the taxon bacteria X.
25th percentile: In 25% of the samples in the treatment1 group, 84 or fewer sequences were observed that were ultimately assigned the taxon bacteria X.
50th percentile (median): In half of the samples in the treatment1 group, 283 or fewer sequences were observed that were ultimately assigned the taxon bacteria X.
75th percentile: In 75% of the samples in the treatment1 group, 825 or fewer sequences were observed that were ultimately assigned the taxon bacteria X.
Max: Of the samples in the treatment1 group, in the sample with the highest count of sequences assigned to bacteria X, 3645 sequences were observed that were ultimately assigned the taxon bacteria X.
The distribution of observed sequences that were ultimately assigned the taxon bacteria X in your treatment1 samples should look something like the following. In this box plot, the line inside the box is the median, the top and bottom of the box are the 75th and 25th percentiles, respectively, and the top and bottom whiskers are the max and min respectively.
Does this help?