The research presented here was part of a BSc (Hons) thesis (MS).
Supplement 1 : Evidence of long-term degradation of the Sundays Arid Thicket (Albany Subtropical Thicket biome) on the slopes of the study site. Aerial images show that this degraded state has been in effect for at least 60 years: (A) satellite image from 2020 (Map data: ©2021 Google Earth, Maxar Technologies), (B) aerial photo taken in 1961 by the South African Chief Directorate of National Geo-spatial information (Reproduced under Government’s Printer Authorisation [Authorisation No. 11851 dated 08 September 2021]). Ground-based repeat photography demonstrates the loss of the majority of remaining trees since 1986: photos taken in (C) 2016 and (D) 1986 (Photo credit: MT Hoffman). Note that, in (C) and (D), the area in this study is not in the area photographed (it is off to the right). DOI: 10.7717/peerj.12176/supp-1
Supplement 2 : Trends lines of soil relative humidity and temperature.
Trend lines of soil relative humidity (blue) and temperature (red) over (A–C) the full duration of measurements or (D–F) the daily average. The pale points show the individual measurements and the grey border around the trend lines depicts the 95% confidence interval. DOI: 10.7717/peerj.12176/supp-2
Supplement 3 : Comparison of soil temperature between the different vegetation types.
(A) Boxplots of data points from three iButtons per zone. Significant differences were determined using the Wilcox test. (B) Mean daily maximum (solid lines) and minimum (dashed lines) temperature over the three zones. (C) Daily difference between the mean temperatures shown in (B).
DOI: 10.7717/peerj.12176/supp-3
Supplement 4 : Comparison of soil relative humidity between the different vegetation types.
Boxplots of data points from three iButtons per zone (A). Significant differences were determined using the Wilcox test. Mean daily maximum (solid lines) and minimum (dashed lines) relative humidity over the three zones (B). Daily difference between the mean relative humidities shown in B (C).
DOI: 10.7717/peerj.12176/supp-4
Alpha diversity of samples as the number of (A) observed ASVs or (B) Shannon index.
Significance was determined using the Wilcox test.
DOI: 10.7717/peerj.12176/supp-5
Supplement 6 : Heatmap of samples using weighted Jaccard distance.
Overall the samples show low levels of similarity to one another. DOI: 10.7717/peerj.12176/supp-6
Supplement 7 : Genus-level differences between zones.
Relative abundance of genus-level ASVs that account for ≥1% of the reads in the different zones. Significance was determined using the Wilcox test.
DOI: 10.7717/peerj.12176/supp-7
Supplement 8 : Network taxa with significantly different abundances in intact vs degraded zones.
Genus-level ASVs used in the network construction are displayed with the name of the genus, if available, and show the relative abundance in both the intact and degraded zones. Each genus is coloured according to the clustering in the degraded network (Fig. 5). Significance was determined using the Wilcox test and only the genera which had significant differences between their abundance in the different zones are shown.
DOI: 10.7717/peerj.12176/supp-8
Supplement 9 : Succulent thicket metadata.
DOI: 10.7717/peerj.12176/supp-9
Supplement 10 : Summary statistics of iButton measurements in the succulent thicket.
DOI: 10.7717/peerj.12176/supp-10
Supplement 11 : Core bacterial community of the succulent thicket.
DOI: 10.7717/peerj.12176/supp-11
Supplement 12 : Core bacterial community of the intact succulent thicket.
DOI: 10.7717/peerj.12176/supp-12
Supplement 13 : Core bacterial community of the degraded succulent thicket.
DOI: 10.7717/peerj.12176/supp-13
Supplement 14 : Core bacterial community of the restored succulent thicket.
DOI: 10.7717/peerj.12176/supp-14
Supplement 15 : Unique core bacterial community members of different vegetation conditions in the succulent thicket.
DOI: 10.7717/peerj.12176/supp-15
Supplement 16 : The number of unique to near-unique ASVs detected in the intact and degraded zone according to the prevalence threshold within and out of the specific zone.
Prevalence thresholds are given both as a percentage (%) and as the equivalent number of sites (n) in the intact and degraded zones. The thresholds and resultant ASV counts analysed in this study are shown in bold
DOI: 10.7717/peerj.12176/supp-16