Authors
Zhengwei Heng, Kangwei Jiang, Yu Wang, Chenkun Wang, Huiliang Liu, Lingwei Zhang
Published in
Frontiers in plant science. Volume 17. Pages 1815311. Epub Jul 27, 2026.
Abstract
High environmental heterogeneity in desert habitats likely drives the differentiation of plant metabolic regulation and rhizosphere microbial assembly; however, a systematic comparison of the coupling mechanisms between metabolites and microbial communities across diverse ephemeral plants and habitat gradients remains scarce. This study investigated four desert spring ephemeral species (Brassicaceae and Boraginaceae), comparing their whole-plant metabolites (integrating leaf and root metabolomes) metabolite profiles and rhizosphere microbial community structures across sandy, saline, and gravel desert habitats under naturally arid conditions. Results indicated that while metabolite compositions were generally similar across the four species, diversity patterns exhibited significant phylogenetic differentiation and habitat dependence. Specifically, metabolite alpha-diversity appeared to differ between the two families, whereas beta-diversity displayed species-specific habitat differentiation. Although rhizosphere microbial communities remained relatively conserved at the phylum level-suggesting an underlying environmental filtration effect-their diversity and network structures exhibited significant host-habitat interaction effects. Network complexity varied across habitats and decoupled from community stability, suggesting that environmental stress reshapes microbial assembly and interaction patterns. PLS-PM modeling further revealed that plant metabolite alpha-diversity is primarily linked to soil environmental factors indirectly through microbial diversity and network attributes, whereas no significant environmental-microbial regulatory pathway was observed for beta-diversity. Our study suggests the phylogenetic differentiation pattern of metabolic adaptation strategies in desert ephemeral plants against the background of taxonomic convergence, provides evidence for the mediating role of rhizosphere microbes in metabolic phenotypic regulation and their habitat dependence, and offers integrative insights for understanding plant-microbe co-adaptation mechanisms in desert ecosystems.
PMID:
42577424
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 11 Aug 2026.
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