ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Symbiotic Interactions
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1576843
Exogenous phytohormones enhance Paris polyphylla var. chinensis (Franch.) Hara biomass by regulating antioxidant systems and rhizosphere microbial subcommunities
Provisionally accepted
- 1Basic Medical Research Centre, Medical College of Nantong University, Nantong, China
- 2Gansu Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, Gansu Province, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Introduction: The exogenous application of phytohormones is a widely adopted approach to enhance crop productivity. However, the precise regulatory effects of different phytohormones on plant antioxidant systems, rhizosphere microbial subcommunities (abundant, moderate, and rare), and their interactions with plant growth remain poorly understood. Methods: This study explored the effects of melatonin (MT), strigolactone (SL), and 24-epibrassinolide (BR) on the phenotypic traits, physiological properties, and rhizosphere microbial subcommunities of Paris polyphylla var. chinensis (Franch.) Hara (PPC) through controlled pot experiments. Results: Our study demonstrated that MT and SL significantly increased PPC biomass by 69.32% and 15.23%, respectively, whereas BR at 2 mg/L inhibited root development. MT and SL may influence the growth of PPC by modulating the antioxidant system. In addition, phytohormone treatments distinctly altered the structure of soil microbial subcommunities, with partial least squares path modeling (PLS-PM) revealing that MT exerted a dominant influence on PPC biomass by regulating the structure of abundant bacterial subcommunities. Furthermore, linear discriminant analysis effect size identified key microbial taxa associated with the application of phytohormones, further substantiating their roles in biomass enhancement. Conclusion: These findings provide significant insights into the ecological management of phytohormones for sustainable agricultural practices.
Keywords: phytohormone, rhizosphere, morphology, microbes subcommunity, antioxidant system
Received: 21 Feb 2025; Accepted: 25 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Peng, Wang, Yang, Jie, Zhao and Zhang. 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:
Tao Yang, Gansu Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, Gansu Province, China
Lei Zhang, Basic Medical Research Centre, Medical College of Nantong University, Nantong, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.