Metagenomics, the application of high-throughput DNA sequencing for surveys of environmental samples, has revolutionized our view on the taxonomic and genetic composition of complex microbial communities. An enormous richness of microbiota keeps unfolding in the context of various fields ranging from biomedicine and food industry to geology. Primary analysis of metagenomic reads allows to infer semi-quantitative data describing the community structure. However, such compositional data possess statistical specific properties that are important to be considered during preprocessing, hypothesis testing and interpreting the results of statistical tests. Failure to account for these specifics may lead to essentially wrong conclusions as a result of the survey. Here we present a researcher introduced to the field of metagenomics with the basic properties of microbial compositional data including statistical power and proposed distribution models, perform a review of the publicly available software tools developed specifically for such data and outline the recommendations for the application of the methods.

中文翻译：

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从宏基因组测序推断的微生物组成数据统计分析指南。

宏基因组学是高通量 DNA 测序在环境样本调查中的应用，它彻底改变了我们对复杂微生物群落的分类学和遗传组成的看法。在从生物医学和食品工业到地质学等各个领域的背景下，丰富的微生物群不断展现。宏基因组读数的初步分析允许推断描述群落结构的半定量数据。然而，此类成分数据具有统计特定属性，在预处理、假设检验和解释统计检验结果期间需要考虑这些属性。未能考虑到这些细节可能会导致调查得出基本上错误的结论。