Fig. 5

Proposal of a microbial consortium for tomato crops. (A), The selected ASVs were identified by choosing the most prevalent (> 90% overall) and abundant (> 0.4% of average relative abundance overall) ASVs from the core microbiota and from the discriminant analysis results (> 60% of prevalence and > 3% of average relative abundance in each group of samples defined by tomato type), excluding from the latter those that decreased in abundance from the post-transplant stage to the flowering and harvesting stages. The membership of the ASVs is shown in the first bar on the left. The Wilcoxon‒Mann‒Whitney test results are shown (left heatmap): red denotes ASVs significantly enriched the post-transplant stage, green denotes those significantly enriched in the flowering stage, blue denotes those significantly enriched in the harvesting stage, and gray denotes nonsignificant (Ns) comparisons. Prevalence (central heatmap) and average relative abundance (right heatmap) values were calculated by grouping the samples with respect to tomato cultivar (Ciliegino and Pietrarossa F1/Maraskino), sampling time (post-transplant, flowering, and harvesting) and sampling region (Campania and Sicily). (B), Correlation matrix highlights positive (in blue) and negative (in red) correlations among the ASVs of the consortium. The * denotes a statistically significant correlation (p value < 0.05). Red and green squares indicate the two main subconsortia identified