Interkingdom ecological networks between plants and fungi drive soil multifunctionality across arid inland river basin.

Despite the known collective contribution of above- (plants) and below-ground (soil fungi) biodiversity on multiple soil functions, how the associations among plant and fungal communities regulate soil multifunctionality (SMF) differentially remains unknown. Here, plant communities were investigated at 81 plots across a typical arid inland river basin, within which associated soil fungal communities and seven soil functions (nutrients storage and biological activity) were measured in surface (0-15 cm) and subsurface soil (15-30 cm). We evaluated the relative importance of species richness and biotic associations (reflected by network complexity) on SMF.

Plant traits and community composition drive the assembly processes of abundant and rare fungi across deserts.

The difference in community assembly mechanisms between rare and abundant fungi in deserts remains unknown. Hence, we compared the distribution patterns of abundant and rare fungi, and assessed the factors driving their assembly mechanisms across major vegetation types (shrubby desert, semi-shrubby and dwarf semi-shrubby desert, dwarf semi-arboreous desert, and shrubby steppe desert) of Chinese deserts. We assessed abundant and rare fungal subcommunities base on the sequencing data of fungal ITS data.

Dispersal limitation dominates the community assembly of abundant and rare fungi in dryland montane forests.

The assembly mechanisms and drivers of abundant and rare fungi in dryland montane forest soils remain underexplored. Therefore, in this study, we compared the distribution patterns of abundant and rare fungi and explored the factors determining their assembly processes in a dryland montane forest in China. Stronger distance-decay relationships (DDRs) were found in abundant sub-communities than in rare sub-communities.

Groundwater depth regulates assembly processes of abundant and rare bacterial communities across arid inland river basin.

Although numerous studies on bacterial biogeographic patterns in dryland have been conducted, bacterial community assembly across arid inland river basins is unclear. Here, we assessed the ecological drivers that regulate the assembly processes of abundant (ABS) and rare (RBS) bacterial subcommunities based on 162 soil samples collected in an arid inland river basin of China. The results showed that: (1) ABS exhibited a steeper distance-decay slope, and were more strongly affected by dispersal limitation (75.

Root attributes dominate the community assembly of soil fungal functional guilds across arid inland river basin.

Plant attributes are increasingly acknowledged as key drivers shaping soil fungal communities, but considerable uncertainty exists over fungal community assembly mechanisms and their plant drivers based only on inferences from plant aboveground attributes. To date, empirical evidences of how root attributes are integrated into microbiome-plant linkages remain limited. Using 162 soil samples from a typical arid inland river basin in China, we assessed the drivers that regulate the distribution patterns and assembly processes of total, mycorrhizal, saprotrophic and pathotrophic fungi in surface (0-15 cm) and subsurface soils (15-30 cm).

Testing the Functional and Phylogenetic Assembly of Plant Communities in Gobi Deserts of Northern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

The mechanism governing plant community assembly across large-scale Gobi deserts remains unclear. Here, we inferred the roles of different assembly processes in structuring plant communities in the Gobi deserts of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau by using a phylogenetic tree, and leaf and root traits. The functional and phylogenetic structures of 183 plant communities were assessed, and their distributions were linked with environmental gradients.