Fig. 3

AluI restriction profile of mock bacterial communities (MBCs) assembled with DNA from cacao bacterial isolates (OTUs) prior to PCR. The increasing numbers of OTUs per MBC are indicated on top of the respective lanes. ‘L’: size ladder (50 bp); I, II and III: types of MBCs composed according to criteria described in Additional file 3: Table S3. The increasing number of OTUs in each MBC type was established by stepwise addition of 5 new OTUs to the existing ones (Additional file 3: Table S3). Equimolar amounts of DNA extracted from each isolate were used to compose each MBC, prior to direct PCR with primers 799F and U1492R; the total amount of template DNA used in the PCR for each MBC was 8 ng. The whole volumes of AluI digestions of the MBCs (8 μl) were applied on the 5–11% polyacrylamide gradient gels