Fig. 2: Host specificity of root-associated fungal community.

PERMANOVA tests were applied to examine the differences of root-associated fungal communities between every pair of different plant species based on the relative abundances of overall or core OTUs (cutoffs of 0.5 and 0.9 are shown as examples). a For each target plant species (SP, n = 39), comparisons were conducted separately against all the other 38 plant species. Different categories show the ranges of the number of plant species with significant (P < 0.05) difference. The fungal community profile for a given plant species was defined as host-specific when it was significantly different from those of all the other 38 (i.e., 100%) compared plant species. Meanwhile, it was defined as host-dependent when it was significantly different from those of at least 35 (i.e., >90%) compared plant species (also see Table S9). b Host specificity was tested with the same definition criteria for each plant species at their different life stages (SP.AGE, n = 97, also see Table S10). c Validation of the host specificity of root-associated fungal communities (SP, n = 39) was conducted based on the fungal communities (SOIL) and environmental properties (ENV) of background soils in the plot (also see Table S11).