PubMed · 2026-07-03
Researchers studying a mountain forest in China found that the type of fungal partnership trees form underground shapes soil bacteria and fungi in opposite ways: trees with AM fungi (which share nutrients broadly) boosted bacterial network complexity and made bacterial communities more deterministic, while fungi in the soil responded most strongly to how densely AM trees were packed nearby.
AM-dominated plots had higher soil nutrient availability and lower elevation; ECM-dominated plots occupied nutrient-poor soils at higher elevation across the 25-hectare study area.
Soil pH was the primary driver of bacterial community turnover (beta-diversity), and AM tree dominance significantly increased microbial network complexity.
AM tree density was the strongest single predictor of fungal community composition, outweighing mycorrhizal tree abundance or diversity as predictors.