# PERMANOVA and PERMDISP and pairwise

**URL:** https://forum.qiime2.org/t/permanova-and-permdisp-and-pairwise/32993
**Category:** General Discussion
**Created:** [April 14, 2025, 4:31am UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/permanova-and-permdisp-and-pairwise/32993 "2025-04-14T04:31:18Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 4

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### Author: ![colinbrislawn](https://forum.qiime2.org/user_avatar/forum.qiime2.org/colinbrislawn/32/6221_2.png) [@colinbrislawn](https://forum.qiime2.org/u/colinbrislawn)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2025, 2:57pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/permanova-and-permdisp-and-pairwise/32993/4 "2025-04-15T14:57:30Z")

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Got it. Let's start with Justine's explanation of beta diversity permdisp vs permanova

> [@Understanding beta-group-significance PERMANOVA results](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/understanding-beta-group-significance-permanova-results/12648/6):
>
> You want to combine permanova and permdisp, since they test different hypothesis. Permanova asks if there is a difference in either within or between group distance for any of my groups. Permdisp tests the hypothesis that there is a significant difference in within group variance.
> 
> So, my hope is that I see a large signal in permanova and a small one in permdisp, because that suggests that my difference is driven by differences between communities compared to differences within one of my communities.

Theres more discussion of beta diversity stat testing [here](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/adonis-betadiver-and-betadisp/9364/7) (best of the forums!).

For omnibus ANOVA vs pairwise, what to do about conflicting results has been discussed in a variety of contexts:

> <https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/62968/why-use-anova-at-all-instead-of-jumping-straight-into-post-hoc-or-planned-compar>

> <https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/9751/do-we-need-a-global-test-before-post-hoc-tests>

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