Research characteristics and hotspots of the relationship between soil microorganisms and vegetation: A bibliometric analysis

Soil microorganisms are an important part of terrestrial ecosystems; they are influenced by and react to vegetation via changes in their physicochemical properties, thereby forming an interactive feedback system with vegetation. Based on literature from the Web of Science Core Collection, CiteSpace software was used to visually analyze 5210 publications on the relationship between soil microorganisms and vegetation published between 1990 and 2022. The majority of the publications (48.81%) were published during the period of 2016–2022, with research mostly originating in the USA. The USA was at the center of the international cooperation network, with the highest collaboration with China, Australia, and England. The Chinese Academy of Sciences was the most productive institution. Kuzyakov Y was the most active scholar. The top two core journals in this field were Soil Biology and Biochemistry and Plant and Soil. The top-ranking category was soil sciences. There were differences in research hotspots among stages. Keyword frequency analysis showed that "vegetation", "microbial community", "microbial biomass", and "plant diversity" were the main topics. The current research hotspots are "Loess Plateau", "vegetation restoration", "ecological restoration", "fungal community", and "ecoenzymatic stoichiometry". Our findings showed that the related topics of the regulatory mechanisms and functions of soil microorganisms and vegetation are becoming the potential frontier of future research. This study can be used as a reliable reference for those interested in better understanding the features of research on the relationship between soil microbes and vegetation and provides future directions for innovative research.