Diversity Index Analysis of Phyllosphere Bacteria of Rubber Trees with Powdery Mildew
The member abundance and diversity of the phyllosphere microbiome community were studied by analyzing the diversity of individual samples (alpha diversity) using various statistical indexes (Table S3).
The OTU statistics were analyzed at a 97% similarity level, and the OTU numbers for the 16 samples ranged from 24 to 324. Using the Ace index and Chao index, the total number of species in the phyllosphere microbiome was estimated to be 34–329 and 29–329, respectively. The Shannon index and Simpson index estimated samples’ microbial diversity at 0.14–5.09 and 0.01–0.96, respectively. The coverage of the 16 samples exceeded 99%, confirming that the sequencing results accurately represented the microorganisms in rubber tree leaves. Despite their distinct algorithms, the Ace index and Chao index generally yielded consistent results and did not differ considerably in terms of measured OTU numbers. Both the Shannon index and Simpson index revealed a ranking of WZS > WN > DZ > BS for the alpha diversity in the microbiota of the four regions.