Fig. 1. Venn diagram illustrating the number of unique and shared OTUs (operational taxonomic units) from the bacterial (a) and fungal (b) community in the phyllosphere of rubber trees
a. A total of 520 OTUs were detected in the four regions: 102 OTUs in BS, 113 OTUs in DZ, 81 OTUs in WN, and 479 OTUs in WZS. The proportions of unique OTUs in the four regions were as follows: 3.27% in BS, 1.54% in DZ, 0.77% in WN, and 67.69% in WZS. Across all regions, there were 36 overlapping OTUs, constituting 6.92% of the total.
b. A total of 1398 OTUs were detected in the four regions: 420 OTUs in BS, 295 OTUs in DZ, 500 OTUs in WN, and 875 OTUs in WZS. The proportions of unique OTUs in the four regions were as follows: 11.09% in BS, 1.93% in DZ, 13.23% in WN, and 44.49% in WZS. There were 90 overlapping OTUs across the four regions, accounting for 6.44% of the total number of OTUs in all pooled samples.
This indicated that although the samples were all sourced from the rubber powdery mildew phyllosphere, there were stark differences in the OTU levels among the four regions.