NMS analysis of the EL-FAME data showed that soil type was the most important factor in controlling community structure. At Day 180, the differences in the soil microbial communities were readily distinguishable by soil type (Fig. 4). The axes-1 explained 86% of the variation in the EL-FAME data, and the Blount0 soil was distinctly separate from Blount1 and Bennington2. No grouping was apparent by glyphosate treatment (data not shown). This result indicates that the initial soil microbial communities of these three soils were significantly different, and that the repeated glyphosate treatments and incubation did little to change the composition of the communities relative to one another based on EL-FAME biomarker analysis.