ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Enhancing Soil Properties and Bacterial
Community Dynamics in Tea Plantations through
Intercropping Tea Trees and Dictyophora indusiata
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1
College of Tea and Food Science, Wuyi University, China
2
College of Horticulture, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, China
3
Nanping Agricultural Science Research Institute, China
4
Nanping Tingcun Guixintang Chazhan Culture Co. Ltd, China
These authors had equal contribution to this work
Submission date: 2024-04-10
Final revision date: 2024-08-31
Acceptance date: 2024-09-29
Online publication date: 2024-12-17
Corresponding author
Pumo Cai
College of Tea and Food Science, Wuyi University, China
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ABSTRACT
The recent practice of intercropping between fungi and plants has been conducted in various
agricultural and forestry systems. However, the majority of studies on this intercropping pattern have
primarily focused on changes in soil fungal communities, often neglecting the effects on soil bacterial
communities. This study specifically examined the tea plantation soil in the intercropping system
of Dictyophora indusiata and tea trees and evaluated soil physicochemical properties and enzyme
activities to determine the overall health and fertility of the soil. Furthermore, the changes in soil
bacterial community structure in the tea plantation soil resulting from the intercropping of D. indusiata
and tea trees through high-throughput sequencing of soil bacterial 16S rRNA genes while also
determining the function of the soil bacterial community using FAPROTAX. The results demonstrated
that intercropping with D. indusiata and tea trees not only enhanced soil nutrients and soil enzyme
activity but also modified soil properties, resulting in an improved field water-holding capacity.
Additionally, intercropping increased the richness and diversity of soil bacterial communities, leading
to changes in their community structure and functionality and a transition from oligotrophic to
copiotrophic microbial communities. FAPROTAX analysis revealed that intercropping promoted soil
carbon and nitrogen cycle.