Nestedness in arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal communities as structured by pH manipulation.

<p>Rhizosphere soils of <i>M</i>. <i>sinensis</i> were collected from Ishikari (neutral soil) and Rankoshi (acidic soil) sites and subjected to trap culture at pH 3.4, 4.0, and 5.5 with <i>M</i>. <i>sinensis</i> seedlings for community analysis (<i>n</i> = 5). The names of phylotypes were defined based on the genus to which they were assigned (<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0165035#pone.0165035.s002" target="_blank">S2 Fig</a>) and indicated on the left of matrix. A combined matrix of the neutral- and acidic-soil communities was constructed according to the hypothesis; the columns of the neutral- and acidic-soil communities were placed to the left and right, respectively, and sorted by pH, and the rows were sorted by occurrence (number of sample in which they occurred was indicated on the right of the matrix). Darkness of the cells indicates the frequency of the phylotypes (numbers of sample in which they occurred). Significant nestedness was observed among the columns (NODF_column = 70.83, <i>Z</i> = 2.71, <i>P</i> < 0.001), but an anti-nestedness pattern was also observed among the rows (WNODF_row = 39.03, <i>Z</i> = −4.35, <i>P</i> < 0.001).