Fig. 4

Temporal dynamics in the root-associated bacterial community composition of differently inoculated apple saplings. A–C Principle Coordinate Analysis (PCoA) based on DEICODE distance matrices, showing variation in the L-compartment (left) and T-compartment (right). A Untreated control plants. B P. leucotricha inoculated plants. C V. inaequalis inoculated plants. A color code illustrates the different sampling timepoints, point size indicates disease severity based on a 0–5 scale with 0 = plant with healthy leaves and 5 = plant having multiple leaves entirely covered with mycelium and with leaves close to senescence. D–F PERMANOVA results for pairwise comparisons between timepoints in the three treatment groups: D untreated control plants, E P. leucotricha inoculated plants. F V. inaequalis inoculated plants. Results for the L-compartment (upper right side) and the T-compartment (lower left side) are shown. R²-values are color coded and Benjamini–Hochberg adjusted p-values indicated by asterisks, i.e., “*” represents p ≤ 0.01 and “.” represents 0.05 ≥ p > 0.01. The significance threshold was set at α = 0.01