Community assembly of organisms regulates soil microbial functional potential through dual mechanisms

Unraveling the influence of community assembly processes on soil ecosystem functioning presents a major challenge in the field of theoretical ecology, as it has received limited attention. Here, we used a series of long-term experiments spanning over 25 years to explore the assembly processes of bacterial, fungal, protist, and nematode communities using high-throughput sequencing. We characterized the soil microbial functional potential by the abundance of microbial genes associated with carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur cycling using GeoChip-based functional gene profiling, and determined how the assembly processes of organism groups regulate soil microbial functional potential through community…

• DT
  Double Thousand Plan of Jiangxi Province

  Award: jxsq2023201046
• NN
  National Natural Science Foundation of China

  Award: 42177298
• NK
  National Key Research and Development Program of China

  Awards: 2022YFD1900601, 2022YFD1900603