The structure and ecological function of the interactions between plants and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi through multilayer networks

Arbuscular mycorrhizas are one of the most frequent mutualisms in terrestrial ecosystems. Although studies on plant mutualistic interaction networks suggest that they may leave their imprint on plant community structure and dynamics, this has not been explicitly assessed. Thus, in the context of plant-fungi interactions, studies explicitly linking plant-mycorrhizal fungi interaction networks with key ecological functions of plant communities, such as recruitment, are lacking. 
In this study, we analyse, in two Mediterranean forest communities of southern Iberian Peninsula, how plant-AMF networks modulate plant-plant recruitment interaction networks. We use a new approach integrating plant-AMF and plant recruitment networks into a single multilayer structure. We also develop a new metric (Interlayer Node Neighbourhood Integration, INNI) to explore the impact of a given node on the structure across layers.
Similarity of plant species in their AMF communities is positively related to the ..., ,