Raw data for soil P cycling paper.xlsx

Phosphorus(P) is a critical factor limiting ecosystem productivity in subtropical ecosystems. Deforestation alters element stocks and cycling, leading to changes in the soil microbiome. However, the impacts of native forest conversion on the capacity of microbes to support P availability remain unknown. Here, we combined metagenomics, culturing, and amplicon sequencing to investigate the responses of soil microbial P cycling after native subtropical forests conversion to plantations and croplands across southern China. Increases in soil pH and P content after forest conversion altered microbial P cycling in these ecosystems.Conversion to cropland has particularly adverse effects on P cycling, reducingthe functional potentials for P solubilization and mineralization, the diversity of P-cycling microbes, and the key P-solubilizing bacterial taxa in Burkholderiaceaeand Enterobacteriaceae.