Earthworms promote crop growth by enhancing the connections among soil microbial communities

Earthworms benefit plant growth and play a vital role in shaping soil microbial communities. However, how earthworms modify the soil microorganisms and thus affect plant growth is still unclear. Although fertilizers alter the assembly of microbial communities, further investigations are required to test the effect of fertilizer type on the relationship between earthworms, soil microbial communities, and plants. We evaluated the role of earthworms in soil microorganisms and maize plant growth characteristics under organic or chemical fertilizers in field and greenhouse experiments. We explored the relationships between earthworms, soil microbial community, and plant growth under different fertilizer types. We found that the presence of earthworms promoted plant growth, increased the amount of plant root exudates, and enhanced the connections between rhizosphere bacterial, fungal, and protist communities. Both earthworms and fertilizer application significantly changed the structure of so..., , , # Earthworms promote crop growth by enhancing the connections among soil microbial communities

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.9zw3r22pm](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.9zw3r22pm)

This is the data from: Shi et al. (2024) Earthworms promote crop growth by enhancing the connections among soil microbial communities. Accepted for publication in the Journal of Applied Ecology.

## Description of the data and file structure

**The dataset contains 5 documents**

**1. Plant growth and soil properties under field conditions.xlsx**

This file includes only one table.

Columns in the file:

(1) interpretation keys (categorical data)

Fertilizer type: fertilizer type (OF: organic fertilizer. CF: chemical fertilizer)

Treatment: sample treatment (DY-E: earthworm input in Daye site. DY-NE: non-earthworm input in Daye site. WH-E: earthworm input in Wuhan site. WH-NE: non-earthworm input in Wuhan site)

(2) units (continuous data)

Photosynthetic rate: plant photosynthetic rate (μmol·/(m2·s))

Chlorop...