Table 3.

The microbial taxonomic structure and mean relative abundance at phylum level from sunflower rhizosphere and bulk soils obtained from Sheila and Itsoseng farms

Phylum		Farm
	SHR	SHB	ITR	ITB
Firmicutes	39.74 ± 6.54	31.82 ± 9.93	12.11 ± 8.56	9.54 ± 0.08
Proteobacteria	29.47 ± 0.55	33.68 ± 18.81	12.67 ± 8.96	11.49 ± 1.19
unclassified (derived from Bacteria)	19.29 ± 2.36	27.72 ± 13.15	28.97 ± 20.48	23.48 ± 1.97
Actinobacteria	6.22 ± 1.59	3.59 ± 2.71	26.41 ± 18.66	19.50 ± 1.29
Bacteroidetes	1.58 ± 0.91	0.83 ± 0.29	3.14 ± 2.22	3.75 ± 0.29
Thaumarchaeota	0.92 ± 0.08	0.49 ± 0.44	8.25 ± 5.83	19.40 ± 2.82
Gemmatimonadetes	0.51 ± 0.08	0.46 ± 0.21	0.83 ± 0.59	1.43 ± 0.17
unclassified (derived from unclassified sequences)	0.36 ± 0.24	0.23 ± 0.17	1.35 ± 0.95	1.16 ± 0.06
Cyanobacteria	0.26 ± 0.24	0.03 ± 0.01	0.07 ± 0.05	0.06 ± 0.00
Acidobacteria	0.37 ± 0.08	0.29 ± 0.07	1.68 ± 1.18	3.59 ± 0.01
Verrucomicrobia	0.31 ± 0.13	0.33 ± 0.07	2.23 ± 1.58	3.99 ± 0.61
Planctomycetes	0.22 ± 0.12	0.10 ± 0.03	0.34 ± 0.24	0.49 ± 0.02
Chloroflexi	0.22 ± 0.09	0.14 ± 0.11	0.66 ± 0.46	0.53 ± 0.10
Nitrospirae	0.16 ± 0.07	0.11 ± 0.08	0.36 ± 0.25	0.77 ± 0.00
Crenarchaeota	0.23 ± 0.03	0.07 ± 0.06	0.66 ± 0.47	0.11 ± 0.05
Spirochaetes	0.06 ± 0.00	0.04 ± 0.03	0.20 ± 0.14	0.53 ± 0.12
Chlamydiae	0.02 ± 0.02	0.01 ± 0.00	0.01 ± 0.01	0.05 ± 0.01
Deinococcus-Thermus	0.03 ± 0.01	0.03 ± 0.02	0.02 ± 0.01	0.01 ± 0.00
Fibrobacteres	0.02 ± 0.01	0.01 ± 0.01	0.00 ± 0.00	0.00 ± 0.00
Tenericutes	0.01 ± 0.00	0.01 ± 0.01	0.01 ± 0.01	0.01 ± 0.00
Aquificae	0.00 ± 0.00	0.00 ± 0.00	0.01 ± 0.01	0.01 ± 0.00
Chlorobi	0.00 ± 0.00	0.01 ± 0.01	0.00 ± 0.00	0.02 ± 0.00
Dictyoglomi	0.00 ± 0.00	0.00 ± 0.00	0.01 ± 0.01	0.07 ± 0.01
Synergistetes	0.00 ± 0.00	0.00 ± 0.00	0.01 ± 0.00	0.01 ± 0.01

Legend: SHR Sheila rhizosphere soil, SHB Sheila bulk soil, ITR Itsoseng rhizosphere soil, ITB Itsoseng bulk soil, data represent mean ± standard error of the relative abundance of microbial phyla