SOIL Metagenome. SOIL

The increasing plastic debris provides a unique habitat plastisphere for microorganisms in environment. However, little is known about the ecology of the plastisphere including diversity, biotic interaction, assembly processes, and functions of abundant and rare taxa in the agricultural soils. Thus, we collected plastic film residues and their surrounding soils samples from plastic-mulching soil in the greenhouse. The abundant and rare taxa including bacteria and fungi of the plastisphere and surrounding soils were studied. The plastisphere significantly differed from surrounding soils in the alpha and beta diversities of abundant and rare taxa, and such influences were greater on rare taxa than abundant taxa. In addition, the enriched plant soilborne pathogenic fungi in the plastisphere imply that the potential for plastic film residues to act as vectors for pathogen transport. In the plastisphere, stochastic process governed the assembly of rare taxa, while deterministic assembly dominated the community assembly of abundant taxa. However, in the surrounding soils, the stochastic process played a larger role in abundant taxa than in rare taxa. The plastisphere has a network of less complexity, more modules, and more competitive connections compared to the surrounding soils, and rare taxa acted more important roles than abundant taxa in the biotic networks. Significant differences exist in microbial functions between the plastisphere and surrounding soils, including carbon, sulfur, nitrogen, and phosphorus cycling, and rare taxa contribute large proportions to the above cycling processes. Overall, these findings extend our understanding of the ecological mechanisms of abundant and rare taxa in the plastisphere in terrestrial ecosystems.