Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal communities in Jiang-flavor baijiu sorghum rhizosphere: environmental correlates and variation among production bases

Waxy sorghum ( Sorghum bicolor var. glutinosum) is the principal raw material for Jiang-flavor baijiu, and its grain characteristics can vary across production environments with contrasting soil and climatic conditions. These environmental differences may also influence rhizosphere microbial communities that contribute to plant nutrient acquisition and crop performance. Among these microorganisms, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are widespread root symbionts with important roles in nutrient acquisition and soil ecological processes. However, although previous studies of liquor-making sorghum have mainly focused on grain composition and bacterial communities, the spatial variation and environmental associations of rhizosphere AMF across major production areas remain poorly understood. This study investigated rhizosphere AMF communities in three major waxy sorghum production bases in Guizhou, China, using high-throughput 18S rDNA sequencing. Soil properties, grain quality attributes, and climatic data were analyzed via canonical correspondence analysis, LEfSe, and partial least squares path modeling. AMF alpha diversity did not differ significantly among the three production bases, whereas community composition showed clear site-associated differentiation, with Paraglomus representing the predominant classified genus in most samples. CCA indicated that AMF community variation was associated with multivariate edaphic, climatic, and topographic gradients; because several environmental variables were strongly collinear, these relationships were interpreted collectively rather than as independent effects of individual factors. Exploratory PLS-PM further indicated that the largest path associations linked the core AMF community with soil properties and soil properties with grain-quality indicators. Given the observational design with one production base and one weather station sampled per region, these relationships represent site-specific associations rather than evidence of causal environmental or microbial effects or region-wide patterns. Overall, these findings provide a baseline for understanding AMF community variation and soil-microbe-crop relationships at the three sampled Jiang-flavor baijiu sorghum production bases.