Raw sequence reads of plant-associated soil bacterial and fungal communities
This BioProject describes a controlled greenhouse experiment examining relationships between plant functional traits and associated soil microbial communities. Twenty-nine agriculturally important plant species representing six taxonomic families and contrasting growth forms, life forms, and rooting strategies were grown individually in pots under a randomized complete block design, each replicated 5 times. Plants were harvested after six weeks, and soil samples were collected for characterization of bacterial and fungal community composition using 16S rRNA and ITS rDNA amplicon sequencing, respectively. Plant functional traits, including biomass, root morphology, and tissue C:N ratios, were measured to evaluate their associations with soil microbial alpha and beta diversity. This dataset provides soil bacterial and fungal community profiles associated with contrasting plant traits, supporting future synthesis and meta-analyses of plant-microbe interactions.