The majority of genera identified in this study were part of the rare microbiome. Rank abundance distribution of genera identified from all sites and times. All genera (x-axis) are arranged according to their relative abundance (percentage) compared to all the identifiable reads (Percent Abundance, x-axis). The vertical white lines divide the genera into four arbitrary abundance categories: “abundant” (>1%), “common” (0.95<>0.45%), “uncommon” (0.94<>0.1%) or “rare” (<0.1%). The numbers associated with each category are the number of genera found in each.