Soil Mic

The mechanisms of soil microbial assembly have been well understood at global and regional scales. However, there is a lack of understanding of soil microbial, especially bacterial community assembly and its driving factors at local scales. This study aimed to explore the relationships between plant diversity, microbial diversity and soil properties at the local scale, starting from the two levels of biodiversity, phylogenetic diversity and species diversity. Lefse analysis revealed significant enrichment differences in bacterial genus to the phylum in three microhabitats, while fungi were only found to have species different from other habitats in one microhabitat. There were significant differences in microbial species diversity and phylogenetic diversity in the three habitats, and the community structure also differed. There were significant differences in microbial species diversity and phylogenetic diversity, as well as differences in community structure among the three habitats. Null model analysis shown that homogeneous selection dominated bacterial assembly and dispersal limitation dominated the fungal assembly. Although the driving forces of community assembly of fungi and bacteria are different, both ecological processes drive the microbial community structure to converge at the local scale. Finally, the results of linear regression and structural equation modelling indicated that plant diversity had a greater effect on microbial species and phylogenetic diversity compared to soil properties. Our results emphasized the importance of plant diversity in shaping microbial community assembly and its diversity at local scale in subtropical forest soil.