Fig. 1

Summary of properties of the softwood substrates. The chemical compositions are given as % of dry weight. The glucan fraction of hemicellulose was estimated based on the mannopyranose-to-glucopyranose ratio in softwood galactoglucomannan [45], to account for glucose that was released from galactoglucomannan rather than cellulose. The cellulose and hemicellulose items were adjusted accordingly (*). Additional substrate characteristics were measured to profile the substrates’ fiber swelling (water retention value), accessibility (Simons’ stain), and surface charge (total acidic groups). Detailed information is given in Additional file 1: Table S1, Table S2, and Figure S1