Effects of afforestation on soil bacterial communities depend on prior land use type in northern China

Afforestation drives long-term changes in soil bacterial communities, influencing soil functions and biogeochemical cycles. However, it remains unclear how these changes dependent on prior land-use history. Using a space-for-time substitution approach combining 16S rRNA gene sequencing, co-occurrence network analysis, and functional prediction, we examined the impacts of poplar afforestation on the structure, diversity, functionality, co-occurrence patterns and functionality of soil bacterial communities in the agro-pastoral ecotone of northern China.