ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Terrestrial Microbiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1700246
Comparative analysis of soil properties before and after Morchella sextelata cultivation across various soil types
Provisionally accepted
Juan Zhao1
Rui Zeng1
Chengming ZHANG1Bin He2Qin Zhang1Qihong Zhou1Zikang Gong1Honglin Liu1
Songqing Liu1*- 1Chengdu Normal University, Chengdu, China
- 2Meishan Vocational and Technical College, Meishan, China
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Morchella, a highly nutritious edible fungus, has been successfully cultivated through artificial means. However, as cultivation areas have expanded, declining yield have emerged more prominently. Soil physicochemical characteristics and microbial communities were critical to production on cultivating morels. In this study, our results reveals that cultivation significantly alters soil properties and microbial communities in a soil type-dependent manner. In sandy soil, pH and key nutrients (total nitrogen, total phosphorus, available phosphorus) increased, while potassium and calcium levels decreased. Microbial diversity decreased in sandy soil but increased in paddy soil, with the overall community structure in sandy soil being more drastically reshaped. Metagenomic profiling identified distinct differential taxa and functional shifts, showing that sandy soil exhibited greater enrichment of microbial genes, including soil-borne diseases. These findings demonstrate that M. sextelata cultivation induces considerable and contrasting changes in soil nutrient profiles and microbiome composition, with sandy soil being more susceptible to microbial restructuring and potential pathogen enrichment.
Keywords: Morel, Morchella sextelata, Soil, Physicochemical property, Metagenomics, microbial community
Received: 06 Sep 2025; Accepted: 13 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhao, Zeng, ZHANG, He, Zhang, Zhou, Gong, Liu and Liu. 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: Songqing Liu, songqingliu@cdnu.edu.cn
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