The ARISA gel imageswere analysed using BioNumerics 6.6 software
(Applied Maths, Sint-Martens-Latem, Belgium). The normalization
of band patterns was conducted by referencing the
size standard. Bands with intensities lower than 5% of the maximum
value of the respective lane were neglected. Binning to
band classes was performed according to Kovacs (2010) and
Brown (2005), and bands smaller than 300 bp were omitted from
subsequent analyses. The generated ARISA band classes, each
representing one OTU, were further transformed as a binary
presence absence table and subsequently analysed without further
transformation.