Reconstructing the hyphosphere using a hyphal release-capture soil microcosm

Abstract

Fungal hyphae form spatially confined interfaces in soil that mediate close associations with bacteria, collectively referred to as the hyphosphere. Despite its recognized ecological importance, experimental access to hyphosphere-associated microbial communities under realistic soil and plant-associated conditions has remained limited. Here, we present a soil-mimetic microcosm that enables controlled reconstruction and recovery of hyphosphere bacterial communities embedded within plant-associated soil. The system integrates field-derived soil, a native soil microbial inoculum, living cotton seedlings, and a spatially constrained fungal inoculum housed within sterile cell-strainer assemblies, permitting hyphal extension into soil while preserving a recoverable fungal-soil boundary. Using the soil-borne plant pathogen Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. vasinfectum as a model filamentous fungus, we show that the microcosm enables reproducible recovery of hypha-associated soil microaggregates containing physically attached bacterial cells. Full-length 16S rRNA profiling revealed pronounced reductions in bacterial richness and evenness in hyphosphere samples relative to bulk and rhizosphere soils, consistent with recruitment of a restricted subset of the surrounding microbiota. Ordination analyses demonstrated clear compositional separation between soil and hyphosphere compartments, with convergence of hypha-associated communities across bulk and rhizosphere contexts. Phylogenetic turnover analyses indicated phylogenetic structuring, whereas taxonomic analyses identified a conserved set of bacterial genera consistently associated with hyphae alongside compartment-specific taxa influenced by soil and plant context. Together, these findings establish the novel hyphal release-and-capture microcosm as a reproducible, ecologically grounded platform for studying hyphosphere-associated bacterial communities in plant-associated soils.