Improved detection of changes in species richness in high-diversity   microbial communities
  High throughput sequencing (HTS) continues to expand our understanding of microbial communities, despite insufficient sequencing depths to detect all rare taxa. These low abundance taxa are not accounted for in existing methods for detecting changes in species richness. We address this with a new hierarchical model that permits rigorous testing for both heterogeneity and biodiversity changes, and simultaneously improves Type I & II error rates compared to existing methods. 
Amy Willis, John Bunge, and Thea Whitman
stat.AP stat.ME