Network complexity varied considerably across the three forest ages types (Table 1). The number of network edges (the number of bacterial and fungal connections) increased with increasing stand age (Fig. 4). The network complexity varied greatly among the three stand ages. The 30 years old microbial community had lower network complexity, fewer edges (1211), lower mean (12.23), and lower graph density (0.062) compared to the 10 and 50 years forest soils. 10 years forest soils had the most complex network with a higher number of nodes and edges and higher graph density.

3.3 Microbial community diversity and composition of taxa covaried with soil properties