The whole microbial community was extracted from the fresh soil samples and inoculated into Biolog
GN plates (Schutter and Dick, 2001). Triplicate 10 g fresh samples were suspended in 100 mL sterile
saline solution (9 g kg−1 NaCl) with 5 g of 3 mm glass beads on a rotary shaker at 300 r min−1 for
10 min at 25 ◦C. The suspensions were allowed to settle for 10 min before 10-fold diluted samples were
prepared. 150 μL aliquots of dilutions were added to each plate well. The absorbance of the wells at
590 nm was read using an automated Biolog MicroplateTM Reader (Biolog, Hayward, CA) and data
were collected using the Microlog 4.01 software. The plates were then sealed inside a plastic bag and
incubated at 25 ◦C in darkness, and read every 24 h over 7 days.