Divergent diversity but convergent spatial variability responses: Plant and AMF communities under different precipitation pattern in temperate grasslands of Inner Mongolia

Clicks: 21
ID: 332028
2026
Free PDF
Article Quality & Performance Metrics
Overall Quality
Not rated
Combines reader engagement with the AI quality analysis. This article has not been analysed, so there is no overall score — reader engagement is measured and shown alongside.
AI Quality Assessment
Not analyzed
Readership in this journal
Emerging

Ranked #55 of 151 articles by views in journal of plant ecology

Most read Least read

Bar heights use a square-root scale. Only the 120 most-read articles are drawn; the journal has 151 in total.

Mint this article as an NFT
Not yet minted

Create a permanent, verifiable on-chain record of this article on the Scimatic Network. The NFT is held in your Journament account, and you can withdraw it to your own wallet at any time.

5 SUSD one-off · no wallet required
Sign in to mint
Abstract
Abstract Global climate change is causing dramatic changes in precipitation patterns, profoundly affecting aboveground and belowground biodiversity in grasslands. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), which form symbiotic associations with nearly all grassland plants, play an important role in regulating plant communities and ecosystem functions. However, the patterns of co-variation between AMF and plant communities under different precipitation regimes, especially whether the plant community serves as a key driver of AMF community, remained poorly understood. In this study, we set up a controlled experiment in a typical grassland of Inner Mongolia with three natural precipitation treatments: ambient (control), reduced precipitation (-50%), and increased precipitation (+50%). We aimed to investigate the responses of plant and AMF diversity and spatial compositional variability and to explore the underlying influencing factors. The results showed divergent diversity responses between the plant and AMF communities: plant β-diversity was highest under increased precipitation, whereas AMF β-diversity peaked under reduced precipitation. In contrast, plant and AMF communities exhibited a convergent increase in spatial compositional variability under reduced precipitation, as indicated by higher CV for plants and AVD for AMF. AMF composition was primarily driven by soil water content. Importantly, soil physicochemical properties contributed more strongly than plant community attributes to AMF spatial variability, suggesting a dominant role of abiotic filtering. This study demonstrate that plant and AMF communities can exhibit divergent diversity but convergent spatial organization under different precipitation pattern, highlighting the importance of disentangling diversity patterns from spatial variability when assessing ecosystem responses to global change.
Reference Key
openalex_W7221310010 Use this key to autocite in the manuscript while using SciMatic Manuscript Manager or Thesis Manager
Authors Yu Tang, Sen Xing, Keyu Chen, Jiahui Sun, Jing Zhang, Baoming Ji
Are you one of these authors? Claim your profile
Journal journal of plant ecology
Year 2026
DOI
10.1093/jpe/rtag241
URL
https://doi.org/10.1093/jpe/rtag241
Keywords Keywords not found

Citations

No citations found. To add a citation, contact the admin at info@scimatic.org

Comments

No comments yet. Be the first to comment on this article.