Microbial abundance and OTUs diversity
In order to study the species composition of each sample, sequences with 97% identity were clustered into OTUs, and quantified and compared the number of OTUs at different stages of cultivation. A total of 1609 bacterial OTUs and 4707 fungal OTUs were obtained. The common number of bacterial OTUs for the four stages was only 141 (Fig. 1a), and 805 fungal OTUs (Fig. 1b), which were much lower than the overall OTU counts, suggesting that the microbial species in each stages were not very similar.
Vegetable garden soil had the highest number of endemic OTUs; OTUs in the soil layer showed a decreasing trend after cultivation of Oudemansiella raphanipes, with the number of bacterial OTUs decreasing substantially, and that of fungi decreasing less compared with that of bacteria. There was no big difference in the number of OTUs of bacteria and fungi in the soil layer between the second and the first mushroom emergence stages. At the end of the mushrooming stage, the number of bacterial OTUs rebounded, while the fungi still showed a decreasing trend.
The community abundance and diversity indexes, including Shannon, Simpson, ACE and Chao1, were calculated to assess the abundance and diversity of microbial OTUs (Table. 1). The Chao1 and Shannon indexes of each sample were used to evaluate the richness and diversity describe the alpha-diversity of the microbial community respectively. The ACE index reflects whether this sequencing result represents the real situation of the microorganisms in the sample, and the higher the value, the higher the probability that the sequences in the sample are measured, which can also be expressed as the coverage of this sequencing result. The chao1 index showed that the bacterial abundance of virgin garden soil was significantly higher than the other stages, decreased in the first and second mushroom emergence stage, and increased significantly in the end, but still showed lower than the virgin garden soil stage. By analyzing the Shannon and Simpson indexes, the Shannon and Simpson indexes were higher and the microbial diversity was greatest in the original samples of the vegetable garden soil than in the growth stage of Oudemansiella raphanipes. The coverage of bacterial abundance was highest in the virgin vegetable garden soil and lowest in the first flush mushroom emergence stage. For fungi, the highest fungal abundance was found in the original vegetable garden soil. Observed species and chao1 indexes decreased at the first mushroom emergence stage but were not significantly different from the original samples of vegetable garden soil, decreased sharply at the second mushroom emergence stage, and increased slightly at end of mushroom emergence stage. As bacteria, the Shannon and Simpson's indexes were higher and fungal diversity was greatest in the raw vegetable garden soil samples. The coverage of fungal richness was highest in the pristine vegetable garden soil and lowest in the second flush mushroom emergence stage.
Table 1
Bacterial and Fungus Alpha Diversity in Soil Layers of Oudemansiella raphanipies Cultivation
| Bacterial | | | | Fungus | | | |
Growth stage | Shannon | Simpson | Chao1 | ACE | Shannon | Simpson | Chao1 | ACE |
CY | 6.96 ± 0.58a | 1 ± 0a | 2735.04 ± 565.54a | 2724.02 ± 563.91a | 4.94 ± 0.58a | 0.97 ± 0.03a | 1631.53 ± 331.24a | 1624.23 ± 329.25a |
YC | 4.68 ± 0.08b | 0.96 ± 0b | 761.54 ± 93.54b | 759.14 ± 91.6b | 3.68 ± 0.4ab | 0.87 ± 0.04a | 1177.81 ± 127.16a | 1197.77 ± 131.16a |
EC | 4.86 ± 0.34bc | 0.98 ± 0.01c | 672.59 ± 123.52b | 670.81 ± 122.48b | 1.6 ± 1.25ab | 0.51 ± 0.19a | 515.92 ± 533.39ab | 511.34 ± 528.33ab |
JS | 5.49 ± 0.36c | 0.98 ± 0.01bc | 1117.89 ± 142.39c | 1111.91 ± 144.13c | 3.08 ± 0.77b | 0.9 ± 0.1a | 657.92 ± 209.57b | 651.75 ± 203.54b |
CY: vegetable garden soil, YC: first mushrooming stage, EC: second mushrooming stage, JS: End of mushrooming stage |
Diversity Analysis of the Bacterial Community
Bacteria 12530 OTUs were classified into 45 phyla, 142 orders, 271 orders, 430 families, 685 genera 804 species and other unclassified groups. The bacterial populations of the samples were studied at phylum (Fig. 2a) and genus level (Fig. 2b). Eleven bacterial phyla, including Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes, Actinobacteria, Chloroflexi and so on, were identified in the vegetable garden soil. The largest proportion of abundance was Proteobacteria with 18.69%; after mulching, Proteobacteria were still dominant and the proportion increased significantly, the proportion of abundance of Proteobacteria increased to 76.91% in the first mushroom stage. The relative abundance of most other phyla decreased.
In terms of genus, the dominant bacteria in the soil of the vegetable garden were Bacteroides (4.3%), and Massilia spp., Sphingomonas spp., Brevundimonas spp., and Phenylobacterium spp.(4.3%) increased to become the dominant bacteria in the mushrooming stage. The proportion of Brevundimonas spp. and Phenylobacterium spp. increased and became the dominant bacteria. Sphingomonas spp. was the most dominant bacterium at the first mushrooming stage with 12.9%, Phenylobacterium spp. was the most dominant bacterium at the second mushrooming stage, and Massilia spp. increased to be the most dominant bacterium at the end of the mushrooming stage. The percentage of Pseudomonas spp. gradually increased, and Sphingomonas spp., Caulobacter spp., and Agrobacterium spp. significantly increased and then gradually decreased at the first mushrooming stage.
Diversity analysis of the fungal community
Fungi 4707 OTUs were classified into 14 phyla, 44 orders, 104 orders, 233 families, 447 genera 901 families and other unclassified groups. The fungal populations of the samples were studied at phylum (Fig. 3a) and genus level (Fig. 3b). At the phylum level, the largest proportion of abundance in all stages of mushroom cultivation was in the Ascomycota phylum, which accounted for about 50%; a comparison of the first flush of mushroom emergence after mulching with the original garden soil samples revealed that the Mortierellomycota phylum decreased from 6.37–1.35%, and to 0.3% in the second flush of mushroom emergence.
In terms of genus, Thermoascus spp. was the most dominant bacterium in the garden soil with 16.06%, decreased in the mushroom emergence stage, and increased to 17.75% in the end stage, being the most dominant bacterium in the end mushroom emergence stage. The most dominant bacterium in the first mushroom emergence stage was Saccharomycopsis spp. with a percentage of 8.48%, and Candida with a percentage of 14.29% was the most dominant bacterium in the second mushroom emergence stage; Besides Thermoascus spp., Aspergillus spp., Trichoderma spp. and Chaetomium spp. increased in the end mushrooming stage and became the dominant bacteria in the end mushrooming stage.
Microbial succession analysis
The principal components were analyzed based on the Unweighted Unifrac distance, with the horizontal coordinate indicating the first principal component, the vertical coordinate indicating the second, and the percentage indicating the cxontribution of each principal component to the sample. The variation in the bacterial communities between phases was found to be 32.8% (PCo1) and 12.2% (PCo2) with a strong separation by region (Fig. 4a). The vegetable garden soil samples differed from all other periods, the structure of species composition in the casing soil was relatively similar in the first and second mushroom emergence phases as well as the end of mushroom emergence phases. For the fungal community, the maximal variation values were 28.4% (PC1) and 11.0% (PC2) as shown in (Fig. 4b). The first mushrooming stage has the richest fungal composition, including all species in other stages. Phases were scattered, and their fungal composition were relatively different, indicating that the bacterial and fungal composition structure in the casing soil was changing with the increase of cultivation time.
To further identify clustering patterns of microbes at phylum and genus levels in casing soil during Oudemansiella raphanipes cultivation, the distribution of bacterial and fungi in different phases was analyzed (Fig. 5; Fig. 6). For bacteria, at the phylum level, all four stages were enriched in Proteobacteria, and the dominance of colonies in the CY stage was not obvious, comparing with the YC, EC, and JS samples, in which Acidobacteria, Actinobacteria, and Chloroflexi were significantly lower than the other samples. At the genus level, the dominant bacteria in the YC, EC, and JS stages were Sphingomonas, Phenylobacterium, and Massilia, respectively, with Massilia being higher in all three stages. The content of each colony in the CY stage was significantly lower than that in the other stages. As for fungi, at the phylum level, Ascomycota was the absolute dominant fungus in all four stages, with much higher numbers than other colonies. At the genus level, Thermoascus was more abundant in the CY and JS samples than in the other samples, while Candida was more abundant in the EC stage than in the other samples.