Host phylogeny is a main determinant of Fagaceae-associated ectomycorrhizal fungal community assembly at a regional scale. Fagaceae-associated ectomycorrhizal fungi

1.Elucidating the mechanism of community assembly is an essential question in ecology, but little is known about such mechanisms in the Fagaceae-associated ectomycorrhizal (EM) fungal community at regional scale.2.We examined EM fungal communities of 61 plant species of six genera belonging to Fagaceae across Chinese forest ecosystems by using Illumina Miseq sequencing of ITS2 sequences. The relative effects of environmental filtering (i.e. host phylogeny, soil and climate) and dispersal limitation (i.e. spatial distance) on EM fungal communities were disentangled using multiple models.3.In total, 2,706 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) of EM fungi were recovered at a 97% sequence similarity level, corresponding to 54 fungal lineages. The EM fungal OTU richness was mainly affected by soil pH and host phylogeny. The EM fungal community composition was driven by combinations of host phylogeny, spatial distance, soil and climate. Furthermore, host phylogeny played the strongest effect on EM fungal community. 4.The study suggests that EM fungal community assembly is forced by both environmental filtering and dispersal limitation, with host effect being the most important determinant at regional scale.