## 4 Discussion  
Interestingly, the counts of bacteria and actinomycetes of the EG (Figure 1a,b) were higher than those of the CK because the used EMs contain bacteria and actinomycetes. Likewise, the fungal counts of the EG (Figure 1c) were also higher than those of the CK, which is probably attributed to the decreased soil pH (Figure 2a). Fungi prefer to live in slightly acid soil environments [(23)]. In general, \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Microbe (\(y\))** & **Soil Nutrients (\(x\))** & **Correlation Equation** & \(r\) & \(p\) \\ \hline \multirow{6}{*}{Bacteria} & TN & \(y=0.004x+1.272\) & 0.835 & 0.078 \\  & A-N & \(y=0.988x+66.93\) & 0.690 & 0.197 \\  & OM & \(y=0.073x+45.33\) & 0.349 & 0.565 \\  & A-K & \(y=-0.477x+171.3\) & \(-0.230\) & 0.710 \\  & A-P & \(y=-1.812x+217.1\) & \(-0.494\) & 0.398 \\ \hline \multirow{6}{*}{Actinomycetes} & TN & \(y=-0.130x+1.568\) & \(-0.887\)* & 0.045 \\  & A-N & \(y=-30.41x+136.3\) & \(-0.724\) & 0.166 \\ \cline{1-1}  & OM & \(y=-1.570x+49.27\) & \(-0.253\) & 0.682 \\ \cline{1-1}  & A-K & \(y=41.18x+91.25\) & 0.676 & 0.210 \\ \cline{1-1}  & A-P & \(y=60.62x+81.30\) & 0.562 & 0.325 \\ \hline \multirow{6}{*}{ Fungi} & TN & \(y=0.049x+1.224\) & 0.429 & 0.471 \\ \cline{1-1}  & A-N & \(y=6.794x+66.93\) & 0.206 & 0.740 \\ \cline{1-1}  & OM & \(y=2.612x+40.38\) & 0.542 & 0.346 \\ \cline{1-1}  & A-K & \(y=14.42x+129.8\) & 0.302 & 0.622 \\ \cline{1-1}  & A-P & \(y=-1.234x+190.7\) & \(-0.015\) & 0.981 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular} \(r\): correlation coefficient; * \(p<0.05\), significant correlation.  
\end{table} 
Table 1: Correlation analysis of bacteria, actinomycetes, and fungi between major soil nutrients. the application of the EMs can eventually increase the counts of bacteria, actinomycetes, and fungi in kiwifruit soil. Based on the observed counts of bacteria, fungi, and actinomycetes, the percentages of all three microbes were calculated (see Table 2). Bacteria is one of major members of soil microbes and plays an important role in promoting organic matter decomposition, accelerating mineral nutrition cycle, maintaining and improving soil fertility [24; 25]. As shown in Table 2, the proportion of bacteria was always the highest in the EG and the CK for each month, which indicate that the application of EMs still maintains an important position of bacteria in the kiwifruit planting soil. In addition, as compared with the CK, the proportions of bacteria in the EG were reduced 28.24%, 16.90%, and 22.29% from May to July, respectively. However, the proportions of fungi and actinomycetes in the EG increased 15.54%, 6.70%, and 11.53% and 12.70%, 10.20%, and 10.76% from May to July, respectively. The results show that the application of the EMs can change the biological diversity of the kiwifruit planting soil ecosystem. In this study, the soil of the EG appeared to have slight pH variation (pH ranged from 6.44 to 6.98; Figure 2a), which indicated that the microbe treatments of planting soil can decrease the soil pH. The decreased pH may be explained by the production of organic acids, as reported in previous studies [26; 27]. However, the extent of the pH reduction of the EG was not obvious, and the pH-values of the EG were still near neutrality. The addition of EMs can promote the activity of urease and invertase in planting soil, thereby increasing the decomposition of OM and the release of available soil nutrients [28]. Simultaneously, the fruit expanding stage for kiwifruit occurs from April to June in the study area. In this stage, the demand of nitrogen is relatively larger than that of other nutrient elements. Thus, the TN and OM contents of the EG decreased from April to June (Figure 2b,c, respectively). In addition, the A-N content of the EG was slightly lower than that of the CK from April to June. _B. subtilis_ can promote planting upon the absorption of nitrogen and lead to the increase of nitrogen content in plants [29; 30; 31].