Fig. 1

Neighbor-joining circle-shaped phylogenetic tree of 16S rRNA gene sequences showing the genetic relationship between the endophytic bacterial strains isolated from winter wheat plants and other related bacteria retrieved from GenBank database. The numbers in parentheses represent the accession numbers in GenBank. In the circular tree, coloured shades of the bacterial strain designations highlight the source of isolation among tillering (yellow), jointing (red), heading (green) or seed-filling (blue) stages. Similarly, coloured shades of GenBank accession numbers of bacterial strains distinguish the source of isolation among the root (yellow), stem (red), leaf (green), or seed (blue)