Fig. 5: A conceptual diagram illustrating how potential negative and positive effects from root-associated fungi reflect the co-occurrence patterns of host plants in the field.

The effects from root-associated fungi may cause differential interactions between plants at their different developmental stages (a, c) resulting in different observed co-occurrence patterns (b, d, e). In this diagram, the profiles of root-associated fungal communities are differentiated by plants and their magnitude of similarity by colors; as the dark and light green plants share more similar fungal species while the orange plant is infected by more unique fungi. Additionally, the strength of the effect from the fungal species is represented by the thickness of the arrows, with red and blue arrows indicate negative and positive effects, respectively. The size of the plants represents their different developmental stages.