Table 2.

Linear model (LM) analyses of alpha-diversity indices and permutational multivariate analysis of variance of beta-diversity indices from metatatoxonomic (16S and ITS) and metagenomic (MG) strategies (b, bacteria; f, fungi).

	16S	MGb	ITS	MGf
Alpha-diversity
Chao1	267	353	51	11
Treatment	0.15	0.08	21.84**	0.08
Age	0.01	5.24	1.87	1.37
Treatment*Age	0.01	0.05	1.11	0.00
Age CT	0.12	4.56*	2.58	0.74
Age EW	0.02	1.62	0.05	0.63
Shannon	4.8	4.5	2.3	0.7
Treatment	0.07	0.96	26.45***	0.04
Age	2.35	4.76	2.78	0.88
Treatment*Age	1.83	0.90	−1.55	2.38
Age CT	15.63*	3.06	0.01	7.77*
Age EW	0.01	1.93	1.31	0.11
Simpson	0.98	0.97	0.80	0.32
Treatment	0.29	1.16	30.11***	0.50
Age	6.16*	1.35	0.41	0.74
Treatment*Age	7.62*	1.08	2.40	3.86
Age CT	24.66**	1.21	1.61	14.70*
Age EW	0.03	2.43	0.83	0.35
Fisher	51.1	32.9	6.7	1.1
Treatment	0.14	0.05	15.58**	0.13
Age	0.12	5.76*	3.13	1.42
Treatment*Age	0.003	0.04	0.96	0.02
Age CT	0.07	4.91*	3.22	0.84
Age EW	0.06	1.81	0.22	0.68
Beta-diversity
Bray-Curtis
Treatment	10.29***	3.62*	5.30***	0.25
Age	3.88**	3.39*	4.30**	1.16
Treatment*Age	2.89*	1.33	2.32	0.78
Age CT	4.06	2.79	6.92	0.83
Age EW	2.15	1.12	1.30	0.69
Jaccard
Treatment	5.42***	2.89**	3.43**	0.47
Age	2.47**	2.33*	2.96**	1.52
Treatment*Age	2.13*	1.33	1.66	0.75
Age CT	2.60	2.09	4.26	0.82
Age EW	1.76	1.17	1.10	0.69

We compared treatment, age and their interaction (treatment*age) and ages within control (Age CT) and earthworm (Age EW) groups. The significance of LMs was estimated using ANOVA of Treatment III with Satterthwaite approximation for 1 degree of freedom. For each test, we report the relevant F statistic (F) and significance [P(>F)] as

^* p < 0.05,

^** p < 0.01,

^***p < 0.001. Mean alpha-diversity estimates across all samples are also indicated in cursive.