Fig. 2

The mean relative abundance (%) of each bacterial, fungal or archaeal taxon within the endosphere, rhizosphere or bulk soil of stem elongation growth phase and senesced wheat plants. Plants were grown at the Church Farm field studies site (A1, B1, C1) or under laboratory conditions in agricultural soil, Levington F2 compost or a 50:50 mix of the two (A2, B2, C2) (N = 3 replicate plants per treatment). Colours indicate different microbial taxa (bacterial, fungal or archaeal). For the archaeal community, N = 2 replicate plants for the endosphere of plants grown in Levington F2 compost. Within stacked bars taxa are shown in reverse alphabetical order (left to right). The “Other” category includes all taxa with a median relative abundance of 0.05% or less. OTUs were assigned and are presented to the family level; where family-level taxonomic assignments were unavailable the next highest taxonomic assignment was presented. For the bacterial community, the data used to generate the plots is available in Supplementary Table 17. D, qPCR data demonstrating the abundance of fungi, bacteria or archaea within the root microbiome. Bars show the mean log 16S or 18S rRNA gene copy per 50 ng of DNA within the endosphere, rhizosphere or bulk soil compartment of plants. Plants were grown in agricultural soil or compost (first and second column, respectively), or were those sampled from the Church farm field studies site during developmental senescence or during the stem elongation growth phase (third and fourth column, respectively). N = 3 replicate plants per treatment. Bars represent ± standard error of the mean. Letters indicate a statistically significant difference between the two samples (Tukeys HSD, p < 0.05 for all)