“…The reason for this could be that bacterial species or strains are capable of optimal growth only within a narrow pH range (Lauber, Hamady, Knight, & Fierer, ; Ramirez, Craine, & Fierer, ), such that changes in environmental pH would directly deterministically select for species with different pH optima. Besides, soil pH usually covaries with other environmental variables such as climate, soil nutrients, plant properties, and the content or valence state of heavy metal elements (Van Nostrand, Sowder, Bertsch, & Morris, ; Williams, Jangid, Shanmugam, & Whitman, ; Wang, Zheng, et al, ; Lammel et al, ; Appendix Table A6). Hence, increased soil pH difference could result in the shift of the assembly processes, especially for VS, which increased steadily with spatial scale (Appendix Figure A6).…”