Estimating read depth (sampling effort) from an octave plot
See also
Octave plot
Interpreting an octave plot
Log-normal abundance distribution
otutab_octave command
Doubling the number of reads moves the distribution one bin to the right in an octave plot. You can estimate the number of additional reads required to sample the full richness by assuming that the distribution is approximately symmetrical, as in the example below. Here, we would need three to four additional bins to capture all OTUs, which corresponds to 2 3 to 2 4 = 8 to 16 times more reads.
