Plant functional diversity regulates the composition and diversity of soil microbial communities in temperate grasslands of northern China

Abstract Plant communities can influence the structure of soil microbial communities through the combined effects of the quality and quantity of plant‐derived resources. However, the specific mechanisms underlying these effects remain poorly understood. We sampled soil bacterial and fungal communities, as well as plant biomass and functional traits, across nine temperate grassland sites in northern China. We explored how plant community characteristics, including biomass and functional diversity along conservation and collaboration gradients, shape the growth strategies, diversity and composition of soil microbial communities. Our results revealed a coupling of strategies between plant and soil fungal communities. Plant communities dominated by ‘fast‐growing’ or ‘do‐it‐yourself’ strategy species provide readily decomposable carbon sources, which increased fungal diversity and the copiotroph/oligotroph ratio but decreased bacterial diversity. Functional divergence in plant traits along the collaboration gradient positively influenced the copiotroph/oligotroph ratio of fungi but negatively affected that of bacteria, possibly because bacteria are less competitive for limited nutrients. Plant functional composition had a stronger influence on fungal community composition than on bacterial communities, reflecting fungi's greater reliance on symbiosis with plants. These findings underscore the importance of different aspects of plant functional diversity, including functional divergence and community‐weighted mean associated with plant resource acquisition strategies, in shaping soil microbial communities and provide a novel perspective for exploring plant–microbe interactions at the community level. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.