BACKGROUND Soil is the largest repository of organic matter on land, storing~ 1500 Gt
carbon, which is at least as much as the vegetation (~ 560 Gt) and atmosphere (~ 750 Gt) …

Fungi represent a large proportion of the genetic diversity on Earth and fungal activity
influences the structure of plant and animal communities, as well as rates of ecosystem …

Despite having key functions in terrestrial ecosystems, information on the dominant soil fungi
and their ecological preferences at the global scale is lacking. To fill this knowledge gap, we …

The global biogeography of microorganisms remains largely unknown, in contrast to the well-
studied diversity patterns of macroorganisms. We used arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungus …

Desert plants are hypothesized to survive the environmental stress inherent to these regions
in part thanks to symbioses with microorganisms, and yet these microbial species, the …

Seeds carry complex microbial communities, which may exert beneficial or deleterious
effects on plant growth and plant health. To date, the composition of microbial communities …

The interiors of plants are colonized by diverse microorganisms that are referred to as
endophytes. Endophytes have received much attention over the past few decades, yet many …

Black soils (Mollisols) are one of the most important soil resources for maintaining food
security in China, and they are mainly distributed in northeast China. A previous …

Metabarcoding data generated using next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies are
overwhelmed with rare taxa and skewed in Operational Taxonomic Unit (OTU) frequencies …

With high-throughput sequencing (HTS), we are able to explore the hidden world of
microscopic organisms to an unpre-cedented level. The fast development of molecular …