title: Plant community, geographic distance and abiotic factors play different roles in predicting AMF biogeography at the regional scale in northern China.
abstract: Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are ubiquitous mutualists of terrestrial plants and play key roles in regulating various ecosystem processes, but little is known about AMF biogeography at regional scale. This study aims at exploring the key predictors of AMF communities across a 5000-km transect in northern China. We determined the soil AMF species richness and community composition at 47 sites representative of four vegetation types (meadow steppe, typical steppe, desert steppe and desert) and related them to plant community characteristics, abiotic factors and geographic distance. The results showed that soil pH was the strongest predictor of AMF richness and phylogenetic diversity. However, abiotic factors only have a low predictive effect on AMF community composition or phylogenetic patterns. By contrast, we found a significant relationship between community composition of AMF and plants, which was a surprising result given the extent of heterogeneity in the plant community across this transect. Moreover, the geographic distance predominantly explained the AMF phylogenetic structure, implying that history evolutionary may play a role in shaping AMF biogeographic patterns. This study highlighted the different roles of main factors in predicting AMF biogeography, and bridge landscape-scale studies to more recent global-scale efforts.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.|Collage of Resources and Environment, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Tianle
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Freie Universität Berlin-Institut für Biologie, Dahlem Center of Plant Sciences, Plant Ecology, Berlin, Germany.|Berlin-Brandenburg Institute of Advanced Biodiversity Research (BBIB), Berlin, Germany (BIBB).
authors.forename: Stavros D
authors.initials: SD
authors.lastname: Veresoglou
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.|State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Yongliang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Freie Universität Berlin-Institut für Biologie, Dahlem Center of Plant Sciences, Plant Ecology, Berlin, Germany.|Berlin-Brandenburg Institute of Advanced Biodiversity Research (BBIB), Berlin, Germany (BIBB).
authors.forename: Matthias C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Rillig
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.|College of Resources and Environment, Qingdao Agricultural University, Qingdao, China.
authors.forename: Dan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Xiang
authors.affiliation: Department of Mycorrhizal Symbioses, Institute of Botany Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Průhonice, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ondřej
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Zhipeng
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Hao
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Environmental Biotechnology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Ye
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Deng
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.|Key laboratory of Agro-ecological Processes in Subtropical Region, Institute of Subtropical Agriculture Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changsha, China.
authors.forename: Yajun
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Weiping
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Juntao
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Jizheng
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: He
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Baodong
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Chen
mesh_terms: D002681:China; D058507:Host Specificity; D006863:Hydrogen-Ion Concentration; D038821:Mycorrhizae / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D058974:Phylogeography; D010944:Plants / Q000382:microbiology*; D012987:Soil / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D012987:Soil