Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 3, 2026
10:31
Isolation and Analysis of Microbial Communities in Soil, Rhizosphere, and Roots in Perennial Grass Experiments
Published on: July 24, 2018
Microbial Community Structure, Rather Than Diversity, Predicts Plant Yield Under Global Change
Xu Xu1,2, Jie Liu1, Shicong Chen1
1The Sanya Institute of the Nanjing Agricultural University, Jiangsu Provincial Key Lab for Solid Organic Waste Utilization, Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center of Solid Organic Wastes, Educational Ministry Engineering Center of Resource-Saving Fertilizers, Technology Innovation Center of Hainan Province, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China.
Global Change Biology
|July 2, 2026
Summary
Global change impacts plants and soil microbes. Nitrogen addition most strongly affects plant yield and microbial communities, with microbial structure, not diversity, mediating plant adaptation.
Area of Science:
- Ecology
- Microbial Ecology
- Plant Science
Background:
- Terrestrial plants adapt to global change by altering metabolism and rhizosphere microbial communities.
- The mechanistic links between plant phenotypic plasticity and microbial consortia are not well understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the relationship between plant adaptive responses and microbial community structure under global change.
- To identify key global change factors influencing plant-microbe interactions.
Main Methods:
- Meta-analysis of 272 global-change experimental comparisons.
- Reanalysis of published amplicon sequencing datasets.
Main Results:
- Nitrogen addition had the strongest effect on plant yield and microbial community assembly.
- Plant adaptive responses correlated more with microbial community structure shifts than alpha diversity changes.
- Microbial network stability and complexity, particularly those enriched with Proteobacteria and Actinobacteria, were linked to higher plant yield.
Conclusions:
- Microbial community structure is a critical mediator of plant adaptive performance under global change.
- Plant-microbe co-adaptation is a significant factor in terrestrial ecosystem responses to global change.
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