Fig. 2.

Phenotypic and microbial responses of transgenic apple lines grown in replant soil. a DI (mean ± SD, n = 3) of transgenic apple lines and GL-3 grown in replant soil at 90 days post-transplantation. b Abundance of Fpmd MR5 in rhizosphere soil (mean ± SD, n = 3). c Phylogenetic diversity of the bacterial community (mean ± SD). Black dots represent individual replicate values. d Principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) of the bacterial community based on weighted UniFrac distances (P-values from PERMANOVA). e Top 20 bacterial families correlated with pathogen density, Bacillus abundance, or phloridzin levels (random forest model). Heatmap shows Spearman correlation coefficients (r). ‘MeanDecreaseGini’ denotes variable importance (higher values indicate stronger influence on the target). ANOVA with Duncan’s multiple range test; lowercase letters denote significant differences (P < 0.05). ‘ns’ = not significant (P > 0.05). WT, wild-type; OE2-7 and OE3-4 (OE), MdUGT88F1 overexpression lines; Ri-3 and Ri-6 (RNAi), MdUGT88F1 silencing lines