. 2024 Oct 18;10(20):e39600. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e39600

Table 6.

Soil microbial community biomass and indices determined by phospholipid fatty acid analysis (PLFA) for cover crop systems in each year and the two-year average in Reno, Nevada, USA.

Soil microbial community	IMB^a	Year	Annual ryegrass	Oat	Faba bean	Winter pea	Yellow sweetclover	Mix 1^b	Mix 2^b	Fallow	SE^c	P-value
	----------------------------------------------------------------------ng g soil⁻¹--------------------------------------------------------------
Total microbial biomass		1	692	971	785	1180	874	570	1136	804	227	0.472
		2	2629	4058	3297	4068	5010	3959	3074	3989	711	0.287
	426	2-year	1660	2515	2041	2624	2942	2265	2105	2397	376	0.371
Total bacteria biomass		1	264	378	259	377	304	194	289	329	90	0.792
		2	1015	1593	1262	1675	2170	1612	1270	1668	324	0.204
	214	2-year	640	986	761	1026	1237	903	780	998	172	0.275
Actinomycetes		1	39	62	46	57	42	35	41	68	16	0.773
		2	288	370	322	418	452	413	341	404	68	0.437
	49	2-year	164	216	184	238	247	224	191	236	37	0.577
Gram-negative bacteria		1	124	127	80	145	129	73	92	123	42	0.881
		2	247	462	304	464	865	433	355	462	131	0.063
	102	2-year	185^b^d	295^b	192^b	304^b	497^a	253^b	223^b	292^b	69	0.035
Gram-positive bacteria		1	141	251	180	232	175	121	197	206	56	0.687
		2	769	1131	958	1211	1306	1179	916	1206	201	0.359
	112	2-year	455	691	569	722	741	650	556	706	108	0.463
Total fungi biomass		1	65	56	48	80	43	37	28	63	21	0.717
		2	200	416	265	403	640	313	311	397	100	0.102
	11	2-year	133^b	236^ab	156^b	241^ab	342^a	175^b	170^b	230^ab	51	0.08
Arbuscular mycorrhizal		1	21	22	14	27	11	15	6	23	8	0.603
		2	41	79	57	80	108	66	66	89	19	0.198
	4	2-year	31	51	36	54	60	41	37	56	11	0.342
Saprophytes biomass		1	44	34	33	53	32	22	22	41	14	0.765
		2	159	336	208	323	532	247	244	308	82	0.091
	0	2-year	102^b	185^ab	121^b	188^ab	282^a	134^b	133^b	174^ab	42	0.064
Undifferentiated biomass		1	362	537	478	723	527	340	819	412	163	0.384
		2	1403	2038	1762	1978	2185	2019	1492	1908	300	0.462
	208	2-year	883	1288	1120	1350	1356	1179	1155	1160	171	0.589
Fungal-bacteria ratio		1	0.28	0.16	0.25	0.24	0.11	0.15	0.1	0.19	0.06	0.434
		2	0.2	0.26	0.2	0.24	0.3	0.19	0.25	0.23	0.02	0.059
	0.06	2-year	0.24	0.21	0.23	0.24	0.21	0.17	0.17	0.21	0.03	0.737
Diversity index		1	1.3	1.4	1.3	1.4	1.2	1.3	1.2	1.4	0.08	0.426
		2	1.4	1.5	1.4	1.4	1.5	1.4	1.5	1.4	0.02	0.358
	1.09	2-year	1.3	1.4	1.3	1.4	1.3	1.4	1.3	1.4	0.04	0.456

IMB; Initial microbial biomass.

Mix 1 (composition: annual ryegrass + faba bean + yellow sweetclover) and Mix 2 (composition: oat + faba bean + winter pea).

SE; standard error.

Means within rows that are followed by the same lowercase letter superscripts are not different among cover crop systems (P > 0.05).