About the Authors

Xiao Wei Zhang

Affiliation State Key Laboratory of Grassland Agro-Ecosystems, School of Life Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China

Jing Ru Wang

Affiliation State Key Laboratory of Grassland Agro-Ecosystems, School of Life Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China

Ming Fei Ji

Affiliation State Key Laboratory of Grassland Agro-Ecosystems, School of Life Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China

Richard Ian Milne

Affiliation Institute of Molecular Plant Sciences, The University of Edinburgh, Daniel Rutherford Building, King’s Buildings, Mayfield Road, Edinburgh, EH93JH, United Kingdom

Ming Hao Wang

Affiliation State Key Laboratory of Grassland Agro-Ecosystems, School of Life Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China

Jian-Quan Liu

Affiliation State Key Laboratory of Grassland Agro-Ecosystems, School of Life Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China

Sheng Shi

Affiliation State Key Laboratory of Grassland Agro-Ecosystems, School of Life Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China

Shu-Li Yang

Affiliation State Key Laboratory of Grassland Agro-Ecosystems, School of Life Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China

Chang-Ming Zhao

zhaochm@lzu.edu.cn

Affiliation State Key Laboratory of Grassland Agro-Ecosystems, School of Life Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: CMZ JQL. Performed the experiments: XWZ JRW MFJ MHW. Analyzed the data: XWZ SS JRW. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: JQL CMZ. Wrote the paper: XWZ RIM SLY CMZ. Nursed the seedlings: XWZ MFJ.