Table 1 Chemical and biological properties of plant-soil niches. Measured traits include rhizosphere soil pH, microbial number and the diversity of microbial functions and taxa. OTU and gene were used as a basic unit to estimate diversity. Soil samples for the measurements were collected from the wheat and chickpea rhizosphere under + and − decaying root (+ and −DR). Bulk soil of −DR and rhizosphere of the decaying root were also sampled. The same letter within one row indicated no significant difference based on the least significant difference (LSD) at P < 0.05
From: The preceding root system drives the composition and function of the rhizosphere microbiome
|  | +DR | −DR |  | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Detritusphere (decaying root) | Wheat rhizosphere | Chickpea rhizosphere | Bulk soil | Wheat rhizosphere | Chickpea rhizosphere | LSD | |
Rhizosphere soil pH | |||||||
 Sterilised | 6.6a | 6.7a | 4.5b | 6.8a | 6.6a | 4.4b | 0.7 |
 Non-sterilised | 6.7a | 6.8a | 5.9ab | 6.6a | 6.7a | 5.3b | 0.8 |
Microbial number | |||||||
 Bacteria (copy number × 106 g−1 soil) | 6032a | 6332a | 3760b | 2490c | 2900c | 3036c | 548 |
 Fungi (copy number × 106 g−1 soil) | 50b | 60a | 22c | 20c | 26c | 22c | 10 |
 Bacteria:Fungi | 124a | 107a | 195a | 136a | 122a | 149a | ns |
Beta-diversity (Bray-Curtis distance between wheat and chickpea rhizosphere) | |||||||
 OTUs |  | 0.2384b |  | 0.3681a | 0.0222 | ||
 Genes |  | 0.2689b |  | 0.4107a | 0.0025 | ||
Alpha-diversity (Shannon index) | |||||||
 OTUs | 5.870a | 5.868a | 5.820a | 5.319c | 5.382bc | 5.410b | 0.069 |
 Genes | 14.521b | 14.564a | 14.501b | 14.464c | 14.465c | 14.379d | 0.018 |