## 3 Results
### Effects of KF and LP on Microbial Community  
In the current study, a coverage value of 1.00 was observed in all the silage samples, indicating that all bacteria were identified. The alpha diversity of bacteria in forage rape silages is shown in Table 4. Though Ace and Chao1 indexes were not influenced by the silage additives (\(p>0.05\)), both Shannon and Simpson indexes decreased significantly in the three additive-treated groups (\(p<0.05\)). In addition, group LP and KFLP displayed reduced Shannon and Simpson indexes as compared with group KF (\(p<0.05\)). \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Item** & **Ace** & **Chao1** & **Shannon** & **Simpson** \\ \hline CK & 67.64 & 66.21 & 3.42 \({}^{\text{a}}\) & 0.86 \({}^{\text{a}}\) \\ KF & 62.32 & 60.17 & 1.26 \({}^{\text{b}}\) & 0.35 \({}^{\text{b}}\) \\ LP & 45.21 & 43.71 & 0.41 \({}^{\text{c}}\) & 0.09 \({}^{\text{c}}\) \\ KFLP & 58.40 & 52.59 & 0.27 \({}^{\text{c}}\) & 0.06 \({}^{\text{c}}\) \\ SEM & 3.62 & 3.5 & 0.39 & 0.1 \\ \(p\)-value & 0.14 & 0.097 & \textless{}0.001 & \textless{}0.001 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}  
* CK: the control; KF: konjac flour; LP: _Lactipantobacillus plantarum_; SEM: pooled standard error; Means with different superscripts in the same column differ significantly (\(p<0.05\)).  
\end{table} 
Table 4: Alpha diversity of bacteria in forage rape silages fermented with KF and LP for 60 days. Figure 1: The temperature dynamics of forage rape silages fermented with KF and LP during the aerobic exposure. CK: the control; KF: konjac flour; LP: _Lactipantobacillus plantarum_; KFLP: konjac flour + _Lactipantobacillus plantarum_. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c} \hline \hline
**Item** & **Aerobic Stability (h)** & \
\begin{tabular}{c} **Maximum** \\ **Temperature (\({}^{\text{c}}\)C)** \\ \end{tabular} &
\begin{tabular}{c} **Time to Reach Maximum** \\ **Temperature (h)** \\ \end{tabular} \\ \hline CK & 28.00 \({}^{\text{b}}\) & 27.50 \({}^{\text{b}}\) & 100.00 \({}^{\text{c}}\) \\ KF & 43.33 \({}^{\text{b}}\) & 30.67 \({}^{\text{a}}\) & 106.67 \({}^{\text{ab}}\) \\ LP & 46.00 \({}^{\text{b}}\) & 28.40 \({}^{\text{b}}\) & 104.00 \({}^{\text{b}}\) \\ KFLP & 96.00 \({}^{\text{a}}\) & 26.40 \({}^{\text{c}}\) & 111.33 \({}^{\text{a}}\) \\ SEM & 8.52 & 0.5 & 1.37 \\ \(p\)-value & 0.002 & \textless{}0.001 & 0.002 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}  
* CK: the control; KF: konjac flour; LP: _Lactipantobacillus plantarum_; SEM: pooled standard error; Means with different superscripts in the same column differ significantly (\(p<0.05\)).  
\end{table} 
Table 3: The aerobic stability of forage rape silages fermented with KF and LP. Based on the analysis of the bacterial community at the phylum level (Figure 2A), _Firmicutes_ and _Proteobacteria_ were dominant in group CK. The silage bacterial community was altered by the additives. The relative abundance of _Firmicutes_ was increased remarkably, while the relative abundance of _Proteobacteria_ was decreased to a very low level in the additive-treated groups compared with group CK. According to the analysis of the bacterial community at the genus level (Figure 2B), _Lactobacillus_ and _Serratia_ were predominant in group CK, accounting for 28.23% and 23.55%, respectively. The subdominant bacteria, were _f_Enterobacteriaceae_Unclassified, _Clostridium_sensu_stricto_12_ and _Hafnia-Obesumbacterium_ in group CK, accounting for 11.74%, 10.56%, and 6.67%, respectively. The additives promoted the relative abundance of _Lactobacillus_, especially for group KFLP (98.76% vs. 28.23%). Meanwhile, the relative abundances of _Serratia_,_f_Enterobacteriaceae_Unclassified, _Clostridium_sensu_stricto_12_, and _Hafnia-Obesumbacterium_ were decreased obviously. The LEFse method was utilized to assess the differences in microbial communities and explore the specific bacteria in each group (LDA score > 4). Figure 3 shows that in group CK, _Enterobacteriaceae_ was the most abundant family, while _Serratia_ and _Clostridium_sensu_stricto_12_ were the most abundant genera.