Background

Bacteria and fungi coexist in a wide variety of environments, and their interactions (so-called bacterial-fungal interactions (BFIs)) are crucial in the functioning of many agroecosystems, driving biogeochemical cycles and contributing to plant nutrition and health [1, 2]. Recently, co-occurrence analysis between bacteria and fungi revealed complex ecological processes such as cross-feeding, competition, and predation [3,4,5]. Interactions involving keystone species — defined as “highly interconnected species that drive community responses through microbe-microbe interactions” [1] — have been reported in the phyllosphere microbiome as well as in leaf litter, soils, and plants [3, 5,6,7,23,24,25,26,27,28]. The host plants were carrot, maize, soybean, cotton, and alfalfa, and the AM fungal species belonged to Glomus, Rhizophagus, Funneliformis, and Gigaspora. The t-test was used for comparing the significant difference between the two treatments. C Bacterial communities co-occurrence networks visualizing significant correlations (ρ > 0.65, P < 0.01; indicated with gray lines) in controls (− AMF) and on the surface of ERH (+ AMF). Circles indicate bacteria amplicon sequence variants (ASVs). The gray edges represent strong and significant correlation between two nodes. Keystone ASVs (black-bordered square nodes) were identified separately for the − AMF and + AMF and defined as those nodes within the top 5% of node degree (number of edges correlations to a node) values of each network. Keystone ASVs are represented with black-bordered squares. ASVs are colored by their genus classification. The number of keystone ASVs in different genera in two bar chart alongside of co-occurrence networks. D Mean relative abundance (%) of ASVs (in five soil types and four fungal species) that match the 20 bacterial isolates from the soil BJ inoculated in the control (− AMF) or ERH (+ AMF) treatments. E Relative abundance (%) of bacteria in two SynComs associated (+ AMF) or not (− AMF) to the ERH of Rhizophagus irregularis MUCL43194 (SynCom19: 19 bacterial isolates without Streptomyces sp. D1; SynCom20: 19 bacterial isolates plus Streptomyces sp. D1). Error bars represent the standard error of five independent replicates. ERH-enriched bacterial isolates in the absence of Streptomyces sp. D1, and depleted by ERH in the presence of Streptomyces sp. D1, are symbolized by stars. F Relative abundance (%) of the 20 isolates associated with the ERH of Rhizophagus irregularis MUCL 43194 or develo** in the absence of ERH as a SynComs (SynCom20) in the pot system