Relationships among rhizosphere microbial co-occurrence patterns, core
microbiota, and soil multinutrient cycling in Robinia pseudoacacia
plantations of different ages
Abstract
Vegetation restoration alters soil biotic and abiotic factors. Plants
have evolved multiple strategies to adapt to nutrient limitation by
reshaping and recruiting nutrient cycling-associated microbial
communities in the rhizosphere. However, our understanding of the
co-occurrence patterns of rhizosphere microbial communities and their
role in soil multinutrient cycling during vegetation restoration remains
limited. The present study explored the co-occurrence patterns of
rhizosphere microbial communities along a chronosequence (15–45 years
old) in Robinia pseudoacacia plantations in China’s Loess Plateau
region, the associations between core microbiota and multinutrient
cycling under spatiotemporal changes. Our results indicate that soil
multifunctionality influences microbial co-occurrence patterns in the R.
pseudoacacia rhizosphere, resulting in a more stable bacterial network
than fungal network, forest age was a major driver of modularized
distribution of nodes in bacterial and fungal networks, and forest
age-sensitive microbes were taxonomically diverse at the phylum level.
Meanwhile, we found that core microbiota play essential role in
rhizosphere soil multinutrient cycling under R. pseudoacacia
afforestation.