Plant stage modulates microbial communities across different soil aggregate size classes and disease levels

Plant roots impact the soil structure and microbial community, thus influencing the functions such as disease suppression. However, little is known about how residents of different soil aggregate size classes are impacted by plants throughout their growth stages. This is especially important with respect of invasion of plant pathogens because the micro-scale heterogeneity of soil aggregates could provide habitats for soil-borne pathogens and pathogen inhibitors among different size classes. We therefore examined how plant impact soil structure and bacterial communities and furtherly examined if the distribution of specific taxa across particle classes could be related to the density of the pathogen