with (Ci-R) > 0.25
pores per pore.
2.4. Statistical
analysis
Data processing was performed using Microsoft Excel 2023 (Microsoft
Corporation, Redmond, WA, USA), and different treatments were subjected
to analysis of variance and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) using
SPSS 27.0 (IBM, Armonk, NY, USA). Graphical representations, including
bar charts, box plots, line graphs, and PCA plots, were generated using
Origin 2022 (OriginLab Corporation, Northampton, MA, USA). Alpha
diversity of the microbial communities was assessed based on the
operational taxonomic unit levels by calculating the Abundance-based
coverage estimator (ACE) and Shannon indices. Beta diversity of the
microbial communities was evaluated using Principal Coordinates Analysis
(PCoA) using the “vegan” package in R (RStudio, Boston, MA, USA).
Bidirectional cluster heatmaps were created using the “Complex
Heatmap” package in R (RStudio). Pearson correlation analysis and
visualisation of correlations were performed using the “corrplot”
package in R (RStudio). The “plspm” package in R (RStudio) was
utilised to construct the Partial Least Squares Path Models (PLS-PM) to
predict the pathways of explanatory variables. Redundancy analysis (RDA)
was performed using Canoco version 5 (Canoco, Boston, MA, USA).