Plant and microbial community assembly across urban vacant lots and their consequences of urban ecosystem multifunctionality

We aimed to understand the assembly processes of plant and soil microbial communities across urban vacant lots and the linkages of plant and microbial communities with ecosystem multifunctionality in urban ecosystems. To do so, we investigated the community composition of plants and soil microbes (bacteria and fungi) in 69 vacant lots in Yokohama, Japan, which were originally developed for a residential use. We sampled soil between April and May, 2022, using three 5 m transects at each of the 69 vacant lots. A 1 Ã? 1 m quadrat was placed at either end of the transect, resulting in six quadrats per site. These samples were then subjected to DNA extraction to determine microbial community composition based on unique Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs).