Fig. 2

Rarefaction methods to estimate and compare phylotype richness among coral species. a Rarefaction curves for coral species with 100 or more records of coral-phylotype association (35 coral species, see Fig. S1 and Table S2 for details). Curves are colored by the extent to which they level off (‘slope at end’), with darker blue coloration indicating saturated curves (low slope at end) and darker red coloration indicating highly unsaturated curves (high slope at end) b Dependence of reaching an asymptote (expressed as slope at end of rarefaction curve) on sample size. Slopes approaching zero are indicative of asymptotic rarefaction curves. Coloration as in (a). c Dependence of rarefied-richness at rarefaction depth n = 15 (Eq. 2) on sample size (compare with Fig. 1b)