Organic mulch can suppress litchi downy blight through modification of soil microbial community structure and functional potentials

Table 1 The diversity and richness indices of soil bacterial and fungal communitites

	Control	Mulch (1 year)	Mulch (1.5 years)	Mulch (2 years)
Bacteria
Ace	3965.47 ± 60.20a	4920.88 ± 66.58b	5004.96 ± 61.42c	5388.96 ± 56.98d
Chao1	3889.78 ± 37.22a	4863.81 ± 50.06b	5025.71 ± 11.38c	5086.18 ± 44.44d
Shannon	6.67 ± 0.05a	6.98 ± 0.03b	6.95 ± 0.01b	7.05 ± 0.06b
Simpson (%)	0.33 ± 0.01b	0.22 ± 0.01a	0.25 ± 0.01a	0.22 ± 0.01a
Coverage (%)	97.65 ± 0.14a	97.12 ± 0.11a	97.16 ± 0.45a	97.07 ± 0.09a
Fungi
Ace	983.32 ± 19.59b	764.41 ± 33.17a	732.07 ± 35.70a	888.89 ± 9.81b
Chao1	989.24 ± 17.79c	778.13 ± 51.10ab	748.22 ± 38.41a	886.31 ± 10.85bc
Shannon	4.63 ± 0.16b	3.25 ± 0.39a	4.11 ± 0.20ab	3.97 ± 0.24ab
Simpson (%)	2.42 ± 0.51a	16.49 ± 2.09b	4.67 ± 0.76a	5.47 ± 0.30a
Coverage (%)	99.81 ± 0.03a	99.69 ± 0.02a	99.81 ± 0.06a	99.77 ± 0.04a

Control group, bare soil in conventional tillage methods; organic mulch group, soils treated with organic mulch for 1 year, 1.5 years and 2 years. Data are presented as mean values ± SE (Standard error). Different letters indicate significant difference among different treatment, according to statistics analysis using SPSS statistics 23 with Duncan’s multiple range test (P ≤ 0.05)

ISSN: 1471-2180