## 3 Results
In amended controls and soils amended with composted horse manure, planted pots showed significantly lower values of lag phase and t\({}_{1/2}\), compared to unplanted pots. The highest slopes of the CLPPs growth curves were observed in soils amended with dried cow slurry (Table 6). In unplanted soils, AWCD\({}_{1/2}\) and AWCD\({}_{\max}\) values were lower in bioaugmented vs. non-bioaugmented pots. Finally, values of NUS\({}_{1/2}\) and Shannon's diversity were significantly lower in soils amended with dried cow slurry, compared to unamended controls. According to the RDA performed with the slope values of all the substrate utilization profiles, values were higher in planted soils and soils amended with dried cow slurry (Figure 4). The variation partitioning revealed that the \"plant\" and \"amendment\" factors explained 19 and 15% of the variability, respectively. Figure 4: Biplot of the redundancy analysis (RDA) performed on the slopes calculated from Biolog EcoPlatesTM growth curves. Units: 100 \(\times\) absorbance units h\({}^{-1}\). The 10 substrates that explained the highest percentage of the variability are shown. Composst: amended with composted horse manure; Cow slurry: amended with dried cow slurry. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Treatment** & **lag** & **t\({}_{\rm IR}\)** & **Slope** & **AVCO\({}_{\rm IR2}\)** & **AVCO\({}_{\rm max}\)** & **AVCO\({}_{\rm max}\)** & **NUS\({}_{\rm IR2}\)** & **NUS\({}_{\rm IR2}\)** & **HV** \\ \hline _Bensica_ & Non-bioaugmented & Control & \(19\pm 0.0\) & \(45.1\pm 3.4\) & \(2.46\pm 0.3^{\rm th}\) & \(0.54\pm 0.0\) & \(1.43\pm 0.0^{\rm th}\) & \(20\pm 1.1\) & \(30\pm 0.0^{\rm th}\) & \(4.15\pm 0.08\) \\  & & Compost & \(19\pm 0.0\) & \(44.1\pm 1.0\) & \(2.10\pm 0.1^{\rm th}\) & \(0.49\pm 0.00\) & \(1.19\pm 0.1^{\rm th}\) & \(17\pm 1.0\) & \(29\pm 0.0^{\rm th}\) & \(3.90\pm 0.10\) \\  & & Comsurry & \(15\pm 0.0\) & \(36.4\pm 0.8\) & \(2.60\pm 0.3^{\rm th}\) & \(0.44\pm 0.0\) & \(1.16\pm 0.0^{\rm th}\) & \(18\pm 0.5\) & \(30\pm 0.6^{\rm th}\) & \(4.01\pm 0.05\) \\ \hline \multirow{4}{*}{Unplanted} & Bioaugmented & Control & \(19\pm 0.0\) & \(43.1\pm 2.8\) & \(2.04\pm 0.1^{\rm th}\) & \(0.47\pm 0.0\) & \(1.25\pm 0.1^{\rm th}\) & \(19\pm 0.7\) & \(30\pm 0.6^{\rm th}\) & \(4.14\pm 0.06\) \\  & & Compost & \(19\pm 0.0\) & \(43.1\pm 2.4\) & \(2.23\pm 0.2^{\rm th}\) & \(0.47\pm 0.0\) & \(1.21\pm 0.0^{\rm th}\) & \(18\pm 1.0\) & \(29\pm 0.1^{\rm th}\) & \(3.93\pm 0.19\) \\  & & Compost & \(15\pm 0.0\) & \(34.1\pm 0.8\) & \(2.64\pm 0.3^{\rm th}\) & \(0.42\pm 0.1\) & \(1.12\pm 0.0^{\rm th}\) & \(16\pm 0.8\) & \(30\pm 0.0^{\rm th}\) & \(3.84\pm 0.07\) \\ \hline \multirow{2}{*}{Unplanted} & Non-bioaugmented & Control & \(20\pm 0.0\) & \(60.1\pm 6.4\) & \(1.58\pm 0.1^{\rm th}\) & \(0.52\pm 0.0\) & \(1.33\pm 0.0^{\rm th}\) & \(20\pm 2.1\) & \(30\pm 0.6^{\rm th}\) & \(4.12\pm 0.21\) \\  & & Compost & \(20\pm 0.0\) & \(57.8\pm 1.8\) & \(1.65\pm 0.1^{\rm th}\As far as structural microbial diversity is concerned, our metabarcoding data revealed no significant differences among treatments in terms of [PERSON]'s diversity. On the contrary, [PERSON]'s diversity was lower in soils amended with composted horse manure (0.9898), compared to unamended controls (0.9922) and soils amended with dried cow slurry (0.9929) (Table S2). Pielou's evenness was higher in soils amended with dried cow slurry (0.76), compared to unamended controls (0.74) and soils amended with composted horse manure (0.74). Rarefied richness was significantly lower in soils amended with composted horse manure (4080), compared to unamended controls (3770) and soils amended with dried cow slurry (3750). The clustering analysis (Figure 5) clearly separated unamended controls, soils amended with composted horse manure, and soils amended with dried cow slurry. These results were also reflected in the distribution of the most abundant families (Figure 6).