ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Terrestrial Microbiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1640980
This article is part of the Research TopicMicrobial Community Dynamics in Agroecosystems: From Disease Suppression to Soil HealthView all 6 articles
Differential Regulation of Soil Microecology in Crop Rotation Systems of Maize, Seed Pumpkin, and Processing Tomato
Provisionally accepted
- Shihezi University College of Life Science, Shihezi, China
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Long-term continuous cropping of processing tomatoes in Xinjiang has led to soil degradation and microecological imbalance, severely constraining the sustainable development of the industry. To investigate the mitigation mechanisms of different crop rotation systems, this study established maize-tomato rotation (SZa), pumpkin (for seeds)-tomato rotation (SLa), and continuous cropping control (SSa) treatments in a long-term continuously cropped tomato field. The results demonstrated that compared to SSa, the SLa treatment increased the proportion of large aggregates (>2 mm) by 16.5%, whereas the SZa treatment decreased it by 24.6%. Rotation significantly reduced soil pH (by 5.6%-6.0%) and increased electrical conductivity (by 124%-215%). Enzyme activities responded variably: phosphatase activity increased by 13.9%, while urease and sucrase activities significantly decreased. Microbial α-diversity was significantly enhanced, with the Shannon index for bacteria and fungi increasing by up to 10.3% and 24.3%, respectively. Network analysis revealed that SZa optimized bacterial network complexity, while SLa specifically reduced the abundance of Ascomycota (by 17.5%) and reshaped the fungal community. Notably, the SLa treatment significantly decreased soil total potassium content by 13.6%. This study confirms that both maize and pumpkin rotation can regulate the soil microecology through differentiated strategies, providing an important theoretical basis for optimizing cropping systems of processing tomatoes in Xinjiang.
Keywords: Processing tomato, Crop rotation, enzyme activity, Microbial community diversity, Microbial co-occurrence network
Received: 04 Jun 2025; Accepted: 30 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Liu, Li, Feng, Liu, Zhu, Zhang, Zhang and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Aiying Wang, way-sh@126.com
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