  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.
