Fig. 5

A candidate for friendly fungi in mucilage microhabitat and its defense against environmental microbes. Partners of mucilage and nitrogen-fixing bacteria: a broad-spectrum anti-microbe fungi (F-XTBG8). a, b Screening candidate in mucilage for resistance to environmental microbes in 1% and 10% PDA medium Only C. raphigera (F-XTBG8) shows resistance to the plant pathogenic fungi and various fungi from the environment (b). c, d By screening in the medium with added sterile mucilage (− 80 °C 14 d), F-XTBG8 fungal metabolites (right and red legend in bottom panel) are resistant to air and soil environmental bacteria and Escherichia coli DH-5α (c: air and soil), but not to mucilage diazotrophic bacteria (c: mucilage bacterial community strains, d: mucilage single microbe). Note: rhizosphere samples here refer to underground root samples that have just entered soil which converted from aerial roots. The zone ratio is equal to the zone of inhibition of the F-XTBG8 divided by the positive control (left, CK⁺: antibiotic streptomycin and tetracycline hydrochloride). Blank liquid medium was used as negative control (bottom, CK⁻). For the high-resolution photos of the microbial inhibition effects (Fig. c and d), referred to Supplementary Fig. 9