Plant and soil traits driving soil fungal community due to tree plantation on the Loess Plateau

It is widely accepted that soil fungi plays a crucial role in biogchemical cycle in terrestrial ecosystems, and soil fungal community can be shaped by plant and soil traits; however, we still know very little about the combined impacts of plant and soil traits on soil fungal community due to tree plantation, especially on the Loess Plateau. In doing so, we provided a conceptual framework bridging knowledge on plant, soil traits and soil fungal community, which tested the combined impacts of plant and soil traits on soil fungal community due to tree plantation compared with natural restoration (CK) on the Loess Plateau. There was a disproportionate influence of tree plantation on soil fungal community by using nonmetric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) (p < 0.05) and the interaction networks. Additionally, soil organic carbon (SOC), soil pH, C/N, biomass in litter and root were highly related to the dominant soil fungal community (such as Ascomycota and Basidiomycota), which can be considered as the main drivers for soil fungal community. Most importantly, litter traits and root traits were considered as the key predictors in shaping soil fungal community in terms of tree plantation (especially litter and root C/N), while soil traits and root traits were considered as the key predictors in terms of natural restoration. Besides, structural equation modeling (SEM) indicated that soil fungal community was co-mediated by soil and plant traits due to tree plantation, and the total effects of soil traits, plant traits, litter traits and root traits on soil fungal community were higher in tree plantation, suggesting that tree plantation had a large effect on soil fungal community compared to natural restoration. Finally, we build a conceptual framework to clarify the combined impacts of plant and soil traits on soil fungal community, providing a new sight to understand the crucial role of plant and soil traits in shaping soil fungal community due to tree plantation, and the interactions among plant and soil and also soil fungal community need further studies. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.