(iii) Plant community-, environment- and soil-mediated
relationships between elevation and above- and belowground plant
pathogens
The final SEM (Fisher’s C = 11.855, P = 0.158, d.f. = 8)
revealed that increasing Elevation was associated with a
significant decrease in Soil PCA1 (standardized path coefficient
β = -0.768, P = 0.038) (Fig. 2b; Table S1.7). WhileElevation showed strong negative direct correlation withsfpOTUs (β = -1.109, P = 0.015) but not PL (β =
-0.159, P = 0.563). Furthermore, Evenness (β = -0.296,P = 0.082) and Proneness (β = 0.665, P <
0.001), rather than Soil PCA1 (β = -0.180, P = 0.482),
were associated with variation in PL . In contrast, significant
reduction in sfpOTUs was associated with increasing Soil
PCA1 (β = -0.540, P = 0.026), but not Evenness (β =
0.063, P = 0.672) or Proneness (β = 0.097, P =
0.529) (Fig. 2b; Table S1.7). The final SEM accounted for 45.772% of
variation in PL and 55.855% of variation in sfpOTUs . In
addition, the residual plots also showed that changes in bothProneness and Evenness were associated with variation inPL , while increasing Soil PCA1 was associated with a
significant decrease in sfpOTUs (Fig. S1.10). This indicates the
important role of plant community in explaining variation in PL ,
and highlights the indirect connection between elevation and belowground
plant pathogens via abiotic factors.