Abstract
The soil microbiome plays a vital role in maintaining soil nutrient levels and ecological stoichiometry balance. However, the relationships between rhizosphere microbiomes and soil ecological stoichiometric characteristics, including organic carbon (SC), total nitrogen (SN), total phosphorus (SP), and their ratios, remain poorly understood. Here, we used a temperate mountain ecosystem as a natural laboratory along a ~ 2190 m elevational gradient spanning a desert steppe-alpine meadow transition. We investigated rhizosphere microbiomes from 20 dominant plant populations across 17 sites by integrating environmental factors, microbial community structure, functional genes, microbial biomass, and ectorhizosphere soil stoichiometric characteristics. Ectorhizosphere soil stoichiometric characteristics were significantly associated with microbial biomass stoichiometric characteristics, rhizosphere community composition, and C-, N-, and P-cycling genes, with functional genes emerging as the strongest predictors. Structural equation modeling further identified the composition and diversity of functional genes as key drivers of soil stoichiometric characteristics. Geographic and edaphic factors exerted primarily direct effects, whereas climatic influences were indirect and mediated through the rhizosphere microbiome. These findings highlight the rhizosphere microbiome as a critical biological filter linking climate to soil nutrient stoichiometry at the root-soil interface.
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Data availability
The absolute quantitative sequencing and metagenomic sequencing data are publicly available in the Genome Sequence Archive at the National Genomics Data Center, China National Center for Bioinformation, under accession numbers CRA022703 (bacteria), CRA022707 (fungi), and CRA022858 (metagenome). The datasets supporting the findings of this study, including source data for all figures and tables as well as statistical analysis outputs, are provided in Supplementary Data 1–7.
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Acknowledgements
This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42001095); Ningxia Young Top-Notch Talent Cultivation Program (Document No. 236 [2024] of Ningxia Human Resources and Social Security Department); Ningxia Young Elite Scientists Sponsorship Program (Document No. 2 [2025] of Ningxia Association for Science and Technology); the High-Level Talent Introduction Research Start-up Funding of Hetao College of China (HYRC202401); and the Ecological Environment Innovation Team Building of Hetao College of China (HTKCT-A202408). We are grateful to Prof. Xiaowei Li at Ningxia University for his assistance in site selection and plant recognition. We thank Yeyun Huang, Yayuan Li, Yi He, and Kai Yang for their help with field sampling and laboratory analyses. We also appreciate the support from the Ningxia Helan Mountain National Nature Reserve Administration and the Inner Mongolia Helan Mountain National Nature Reserve Administration. We express our sincere gratitude to the editor and reviewers for their constructive feedback and insightful comments. Yi Yang gratefully acknowledges the support of the Ningxia Agricultural Publicity and Education Exhibition Center.
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K.Y.Q. and H.Y.L. conceived and designed the study. Y.Y., Y.Q.Z., W.S.L., and Y.J.G. conducted field sampling and laboratory experiments. Y.Y. conducted all statistical analyses, generated figures, and drafted the initial manuscript. K.Y.Q., H.Y.L., Q.Q.C., and Y.Z.X. revised it. K.Y.Q., Y.Y., and W.S.L. provided resources and funding. All authors contributed to writing and revising the manuscript.
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Yang, Y., Qiu, K., Zhang, Y. et al. Rhizosphere microbial functions drive ecological stoichiometry in soils across an elevational gradient of a temperate mountain ecosystem. Commun Biol (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-026-09553-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-026-09553-7
