DNA extraction and sequencing
Microbial community DNA was extracted from soil, root, and leaf samples using the FastDNA® Spin Kit for Soil (MP Biomedicals), following the manufacturer’s instructions. The hypervariable region ITS of the fungal gene was amplified using the primer pairs ITS1F (5’-CTTGGTCATTTAGAGGAAGTAA-3’) and ITS2R (5’-GCTGCGTTCTTCATCGATGC-3’) (Adams et al., 2013). Sequencing was conducted on the Illumina MiSeq platform, following standard protocols. All samples were pooled in equimolar concentrations and subjected to paired-end sequencing on the Illumina MiSeq platform. The paired-end sequences were merged to generate single sequences of approximately 300 bp. These sequences were then quality-filtered (maximum expected error = 0.2), and singletons were removed using USEARCH v.10. (Edgar, 2010). The raw reads obtained from the sequencing were deposited into the NCBI Sequence Read Archive (SRA) database (Accession Number: SRP342019).