Soil salinization poses a global threat to terrestrial ecosystems. Soil microorganisms, crucial for maintaining ecosystem services, are sensitive to changes in soil structure and properties, particularly salinity. In this study, contrasting dynamics within the rhizosphere and bulk soil were focused on exploring the effects of heightened salinity on soil microbial communities, evaluating the influences shaping their composition in saline environments. This study observed a general decrease in bacterial alpha diversity with increasing salinity, along with shifts in community structure in terms of taxa relative abundance. The size and stability of bacterial co-occurrence networks declined under salt stress, indicating functional and resilience losses. An increased proportion of heterogeneous selection in bacterial community assembly suggested salinity's critical role in shaping bacterial communities. Stochasticity dominated fungal community assembly, suggesting their relatively lower sensitivity to soil salinity. However, bipartite network analysis revealed that fungi played a more significant role than bacteria in intensified microbial interactions in the rhizosphere under salinity stress compared to the bulk soil. Therefore, microbial cross-domain interactions might play a key role in bacterial resilience under salt stress in the rhizosphere.
Keywords: bipartite network; co-occurrence; community assembly; fungal–bacterial interactions; rhizosphere; saline soil.