These results suggest that ectomycorrhizal fungi can drive the bacterial communities based upon their nutrient needs.
They also highlight the necessity of evaluating both the ability of these bacterial communities to weather minerals and their relative role.
All these observations highlight the need for taking into account the ecology of mineral-weathering microorganisms and to demonstrate that the mineral-weathering process in soil is not a simple additive effect of different factors but that other factors, such as microbial interactions, are involved and need to be monitored.