Untitled Soil carbon-driven microbial community structure, rather than diversity, predicts plant yield under global changeItem

Under global change, terrestrial plants adjust their physiological metabolism alongside adaptive restructuring of rhizosphere microbial communities, yet the mechanistic links between plant phenotypic plasticity and microbial consortia remain unclear. Here, we conducted a meta-analysis of 272 global-change experimental comparisons and found nitrogen addition exerted the strongest effects on both plant yield and microbial community assembly that among all global change factors examined. Plant adaptive responses were more strongly associated with shifts in microbial community structure than with changes in alpha diversity. Microbial community reorganization was associated to increased soil carbon availability, whereas higher local microbial beta diversity constrained the magnitude of structural change.