Cover crops may influence soil health and functioning. However, little is known about the role of belowground root architectural traits in linking cover crop diversity with rhizosphere soil ecosystem properties. We hypothesize that cover crop diversity may improve root traits, which in return, could influence its effects on essential indicators of soil physicochemical heterogeneity, such as the composition of soil aggregate-size classes and nutrients, and the soil organic matter (SOM) and soil organic carbon (SOC) contents. We studied the impact of plant diversity on root traits and soil properties. The four soil aggregate-size classes, such as large macro- (>2000 μm), small macro- (<2000-500 μm), meso- (<500-250 μm), and micro-aggregates (<250 μm) were separated by the dry sieving. Root traits such as surface area (cm²) and length (cm) were quantified by image analysis using Winrhizo. The soil nutrient, SOM, and SOC contents were determined by standard methods. We used Fox's (2005) method for partitioning the selection and complementarity effects on plant productivity. Plant diversity improved productivity, root architectural traits, root coverage, the composition of soil aggregate-size classes and nutrients, SOM and SOC contents across the soil depth. It increased and decreased the relative abundance of meso- and micro-aggregates, respectively. Both root architectural traits and SOC contents positively correlated with several soil edaphic properties essential for physicochemical heterogeneity, health, and functioning. Our results suggest that competition among plant roots in species-rich than poor communities may improve rhizosphere soil carbon storage, the composition of soil aggregate-size classes, and nutrients.

覆盖作物可能会影响土壤健康和功能。然而，关于地下根系建筑性状在将覆盖作物多样性与根际土壤生态系统特性联系起来方面的作用知之甚少。我们假设覆盖作物的多样性可能会改善根系性状，而根系性状反过来又会影响其对土壤理化非均质性基本指标的影响，例如土壤团聚体大小和营养成分，土壤有机质（SOM）和土壤有机碳（SOC）含量。我们研究了植物多样性对根系性状和土壤特性的影响。四种土壤集料尺寸类别分别是大宏观颗粒物（> 2000μm），小宏观颗粒物（<2000-500μm），中观颗粒物（<500-250μm）和微型聚集体（<250μm）。通过干筛分离。）和长度（cm）通过使用Winrhizo的图像分析进行量化。通过标准方法测定土壤养分，SOM和SOC含量。我们使用Fox（2005）的方法来划分选择和互补对植物生产力的影响。植物多样性提高了生产力，根部建筑特性，根系覆盖度，土壤团聚体大小类别和养分的组成，整个土壤深度的SOM和SOC含量。它分别增加和减少了中聚集体和微聚集体的相对丰度。根部建筑特性和SOC含量均与几种土壤化学性质呈正相关，而土壤化学性质对于物理化学异质性，健康和功能至关重要。我们的结果表明，物种丰富的植物根系与贫穷社区的植物根系之间的竞争可能会改善根际土壤的碳储量，