3.2 | The factors that influence the diversity of the community

Analysis of rarefaction curve with iNEXT (Hsieh et al., 2016) indicated that all samples are sufficiently sequenced to represent its identity (Figure S1). PERMANOVA analysis was used to determine which of the 4 factors - Transect, Time (day and night), Station and Size Fraction, explain the variations of the community diversity (Table 1). The factor that explained the largest variation was the Size Fraction with R2 of 0.38 (P = 0.0001). Time (day and night) and Transect (South and North-West) also significantly influenced the diversity of the communities among samples (R2 = 0.08125 and 0.04914 ; P = 0.0002 and 0.0013, respectively). However, Station, which represents the distance of sampling sites from the shore on each transect, showed no significant influence on the community’s diversity (P = 0.051). The same patterns were observed in the alpha diversity values. There was no nearshore - offshore gradient between Stations (Figure 3). In general, higher diversity was observed in Size Fraction 2 (Figure 4). In the North-West samples, there was a higher diversity during the night samples than during the day, however, the same pattern was not evident in the communities of the South transect.