BACKGROUND:This study aims to demonstrate the underlying correlation between the resolution of liver fibrosis induced by Gexia-Zhuyu decoction (GZD) treatment and myeloid cell-mediated angiogenesis. MATERIAL AND METHODS:A liver fibrosis mouse model i...

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi occur in the interface between soils and plants. Yet, the impacts of the plant community functional composition and soil properties on AM fungal communities remain poorly understood in the face of ongoing climate change. Here, we investigated the AM fungal community in alpine meadow habitats of the Tibetan Plateau by linking fungal species richness to plant community functional composition and soil parameters at three latitudinal sites. High-throughput sequencing of the AM fungal small subunit rRNA gene was performed to characterize fungal communities. We found that AM fungal diversity and plant functional diversity, as well as the contents of soil nutrients, were significantly higher in the southernmost site, Hongyuan (HY). Total soil nitrogen and soil-available phosphorus explained the variation in AM fungal diversity, while AM fungal biomass was best predicted by the plant community-weighed mean nitrogen:phosphorus ratio (CWM-N:P). Glomus species preferentially occurred in the northernmost site of Hezuo (HZ). Distance-based redundancy analysis (db-RDA) revealed that AM fungal community structure was influenced by not only CWM-N:P but also by plant community-weighed mean photosynthetic rate (CWM-Pn), soil total carbon, and plant community functional dispersion (FDis). We conclude that plant traits and soil properties are crucial for nutrient–carbon (C) exchange, as fungal symbionts may shape AM communities in this vast alpine meadow ecosystem. Our findings provide timely insight into AM fungal community assembly from the perspective of nutrient–C exchange dynamics in the Tibetan Plateau’s alpine meadow habitats.

Aims Despite several studies demonstrating that plant traits determine plant community response to precipitation changes and that precipitation indirectly affects arbuscular mycorhizal (AM) fungal communities by changes in plant community attributes. Yet the impacts of plant traits on AM fungal communities are still unknown under precipitation change. Methods We selected three sites extremely ideal to examine the effects of plant community functional traits and soil properties on AM fungal communities due to similar plant species and precipitation differences in an alpine meadow of Tibetan Plateau. Results We observed that high precipitation markedly enhanced AM fungal diversities, plant community functional diversities and soil nutrients. Total soil nitrogen and soil available phosphorus predicted variation in AM fungal diversities, while AM fungal biomass was predicted by plant community-weighed means of nitrogen and phosphorus ratio (CWM-N:P). Members of Glomus preferred to inhabit in the sites with low precipitation. A distance-based redundancy analysis (db-RDA) demonstrated that AM fungal community structure was predicted by CWM-N:P, plant community-weighed means of photosynthetic rate (CWM-P_n), total soil carbon and plant community functional dispersion (FD_is). Conclusions We conclude that plant traits and soil properties, which are involved in nutrient-carbon (C) exchange in AM fungal symbionts, shape AM fungal communities under ambient precipitation gradients. Our finding provided a novel insight into AM fungal community assembly from the perspective of nutrient-carbon exchange.