Abstract: To test whether the interspecific interactions between intercropping crops would affect soil arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal community, we conducted a three-year field experiment with potato monoculture (T0) as control, and intercropping systems including potato‖maize (T1), potato‖faba bean (T2). Based on highthroughput sequencing, we analyzed the relationship of AM fungal community composition and diversity with rhizosphere soil properties of potato plants in T1 and T2. The results showed that 2893 OTUs of AM fungi were obtained, which could be classified into 1 phylum, 3 classes, 4 orders, 8 families, 11 genera, and 104 species. Claroideoglomus, Glomus and Paraglomus were the dominant genera across all the treatments. Both maize and faba bean intercropped with potato changed the relative abundance of AM fungi. Compared to T0, the relative abundance of Claroideoglomus was decreased and that ofGlomus and Paraglomus was increased under T1 treatment. Under T2 treatment, the relative abundance ofClaroideoglomus was higher than that of T0, but that of Glomus and Paraglomus had an opposite trend. Results of Metastats test showed a significant difference in the relative abundance of Paraglomus in potato rhizosphere soil between T1 and T2 treatments (P=0.024), and a significant difference in the relative abundance of Otospora between T0 and T2 treatments (P=0.005). The AM fungal Shannon index in potato rhizosphere soil was significantly different between T1 and T2 (P<0.05). Results of principal component analysis showed that the composition of AM fungal community in potato rhizosphere soil was similar under T0 and T1 treatments. There was a significant negative correlation between soil available nitrogen and AM fungal Shannon diversity (P=0.043). The relative abundance ofClaroideoglomus at the genus level was significantly positively correlated with the concentration of available nitrogen (P=0.006). There was a significant positive correlation between the relative abundance ofArchaeospora and the concentration of available phosphorus (P=0.046). Our results suggested that potato intercropped with maize or faba bean showed a great advantage than monoculture. Interspecific interaction significantly changed the composition of AM fungal community in the rhizosphere soil, suggesting that the selection of intercrops plays an important role in developing intercropping system and stabilizing agroecosystem.

Key words: potato, interspecific interaction, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, land equivalentratio, rhizosphere, soil property.