Endophytes often have dramatic effects on their host plants. Characterizing the relationships among members of these communities has focused on identifying the effects of single microbes on their host, but has generally overlooked interactions among the myriad microbes in natural communities as well as potential higher-order interactions. Network analyses offer a powerful means for characterizing patterns of interaction among microbial members of the phytobiome that may be crucial to mediating its assembly and function. We sampled twelve endophytic communities, comparing patterns of niche overlap between coexisting bacteria and fungi to evaluate the effect of nutrient supplementation on local and global competitive network structure. We found that, despite differences in the degree distribution, there were few significant differences in the global network structure of niche-overlap networks following persistent nutrient amendment. Likewise, we found idiosyncratic and weak evidence for higher-order interactions regardless of nutrient treatment. This work provides a first-time characterization of niche-overlap network structure in endophytic communities and serves as a framework for higher-resolution analyses of microbial interaction networks as a consequence and a cause of ecological variation in microbiome function.

内生菌通常对其寄主植物产生巨大影响。表征这些群落成员之间的关系侧重于确定单个微生物对其宿主的影响，但通常忽视了自然群落中无数微生物之间的相互作用以及潜在的高阶相互作用。网络分析提供了一种强有力的方法来表征植物组微生物成员之间的相互作用模式，这对于调节其组装和功能可能至关重要。我们对十二个内生群落进行了采样，比较了共存细菌和真菌之间的生态位重叠模式，以评估营养补充对局部和全球竞争网络结构的影响。我们发现，尽管程度分布存在差异，但持续营养修正后的生态位重叠网络的全球网络结构几乎没有显着差异。同样，无论营养处理如何，我们都发现了高阶相互作用的特殊且微弱的证据。这项工作首次描述了内生群落中生态位重叠网络结构的特征，并作为微生物相互作用网络高分辨率分析的框架，作为微生物组功能生态变化的结果和原因。