ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Terrestrial Microbiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1651997
This article is part of the Research TopicMicrobe-Environment Interaction Across Grassland Ecosystems: Soil Microbial Diversity, Plant-Microbe Interplay, and Ecosystem FunctionalityView all 5 articles
Loquat-Tea Intercropping Enhances Rhizosphere Microbial Diversity and Functional Profiles in Tea Soil Ecosystems
Provisionally accepted
Chengyi Zou1Tianfei Dai2Zhonghua Liang3Mingyan Li1
Lina Meng1
Zhao Xianming1Nianzhen Li1Qin Wei1Mohamed A Abd Elhamid4Amr M Atif4Salma A Soaud4Mengling Wen1*
Kuan Yan1*
Ahmed H. El-Sappah1,4*- 1Yibin University, Yibin, China
- 2Sichuan Green Food Development Center, Chengdu, China
- 3Xingwen Sanhe Landscaping Co.,, Yibin, China
- 4Zagazig University Faculty of Agriculture, Zagazig, Egypt
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Intercropping systems can significantly influence soil microbial communities, affecting plant health and soil nutrient cycling, which has better economic and ecological benefits than monoculture of tea. This study investigated the impact of loquat-tea intercropping on the microbial community structure and functional gene composition in the rhizosphere soil of tea (Camellia sinensis). Using metagenomic sequencing, we analyzed rhizosphere soils from loquat-tea intercropping (PP_CS), tea monoculture (CS), and loquat monoculture (PP). A total of 161 phyla, 269 classes, 485 orders, 1,000 families, 3,838 genera, and 27,624 species were annotated across samples. Dominant phyla included Actinobacteria, Proteobacteria, Acidobacteria, and Chloroflexi. The genera Bradyrhizobium (4.20%) and Trebonia (3.78%) were notably enriched in the intercropping system. The analysis of community differences showed that unclassified_c_acidobacteria was in pp_cs group, demonstrating the highest LDA score (4.4 score). Functional annotation via the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) revealed that metabolic pathways were predominant across all treatments, with 36,111,608 reads assigned to metabolism. The comparative analysis at KEGG level 3 revealed that Metabolic pathways 289 constituted the most abundantly annotated functional category across all three groups. Redundancy analysis (RDA) showed strong correlations between key microbial genera (Trebonia, Bradyrhizobium) and soil properties, including organic matter (OM), alkali hydrolyzed nitrogen (AN), available phosphorus (AP), and available potassium (AK). These findings suggest that loquattea intercropping promotes microbial diversity and enhances functional potential, 2 improving soil health and nutrient availability in tea cultivation systems.
Keywords: intercropping, tea rhizosphere, Metagenomics, Microbial Diversity, functional genes
Received: 23 Jun 2025; Accepted: 22 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zou, Dai, Liang, Li, Meng, Xianming, Li, Wei, Elhamid, Atif, Soaud, Wen, Yan and El-Sappah. 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:
Mengling Wen, Yibin University, Yibin, China
Kuan Yan, Yibin University, Yibin, China
Ahmed H. El-Sappah, Yibin University, Yibin, China
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