Fig 1.
Median arthropod richness per site is higher in benthos samples than water samples.
Results are based on normalized data.
Fig 2.
Few arthropod ESVs are shared among benthic and water samples.
The ternary plot shows the proportion of ESVs unique to benthos samples, unique to water samples, or shared. Sample names are shown directly on the plot. Results are based on normalized data.
Fig 3.
A greater diversity of arthropod sequence variants are detected from benthic samples.
Each point represents a genus identified with high confidence and the number of benthic and water exact sequence variants (ESVs) with this taxonomic assignment. Only genera represented by at least 2 ESVs in both benthic and water samples are labelled in the plot for clarity. The points are color coded for the 17 arthropod orders detected in this study. A 1:1 correspondence line (dotted) is also shown. Points that fall above this line are represented by a greater number of ESVs from benthic samples. A log10 scale is shown on each axis to improve the spread of points with small values.
Fig 4.
Samples cluster by collection method and river delta.
The NMDS is based on rarefied data and Sorensen dissimilarities based on presence-absence data. The first plot shows sites clustered by collection method, benthos or water. The second plot shows sites clustered by river delta, Athabasca River or Peace River delta.
Fig 5.
More Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, Trichoptera, and Odonata family ESVs are detected from benthos compared with water samples.
Each cell shows ESV richness colored according to the legend. Grey cells indicate zero ESVs. Only ESVs taxonomically assigned to families with high confidence (bootstrap support > = 0.20) are included. Based on normalized data.