Open Access

ARTICLE

Planting Years Drive Structural and Functional Shifts in the Rhizosphere Bacterial Microbiome of Zanthoxylum bungeanum

De Zhang^1,2, Yuan-Zu Ji¹, Tong Zhao¹, Jun-Ying Zhao^1,*

1 Gansu Academy of Forestry Sciences, Lanzhou, 730030, China
2 College of Forestry, Gansu Agricultural University, Lanzhou, 730070, China

* Corresponding Author: Jun-Ying Zhao. Email:

(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Plant Biodiversity (Cultivated and Wild Flora) and Its Utility in Plant Breeding)

Phyton-International Journal of Experimental Botany 2025, 94(9), 2815-2838. https://doi.org/10.32604/phyton.2025.069196

Received 17 June 2025; Accepted 29 August 2025; Issue published 30 September 2025

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of planting duration (1, 5, 10 and 15 years) on soil properties, bacterial community diversity, and function in the rhizosphere of Zanthoxylum bungeanum. We employed Illumina high-throughput sequencing and PICRUSt2 functional prediction to analyze the structure and functional potential of rhizosphere soil bacterial communities. The Mantel test and redundancy analysis were used to identify physicochemical factors influencing bacterial community structure and function. The results indicated significant differences in rhizosphere soil physicochemical properties across planting years: the content of organic matter, alkaline hydrolyzable nitrogen in the soil, as well as the activity of invertase, urease, and alkaline phosphatase initially increased and then decreased, while available potassium, Olsen-phosphorus content, and peroxidase activity continued to increase. However, bacterial alpha diversity (Chao1 and Shannon indices) and the number of amplicon sequence variants increased continuously with planting duration. Principal coordinate analysis and Adonis tests revealed that the planting year significantly influenced the bacterial community structure (p < 0.05). The phyla Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Acidobacteriota and Chloroflexi collectively constituted 56.7% to 71.2% of the relative abundance, representing the dominant taxa. PICRUSt2 predictions indicated key functional categories (cellular processes, metabolism, genetic information processing, and environmental information processing) each exceeding 10% relative abundance. BugBase analysis revealed a progressive increase in aerobic and oxidative stress-tolerant bacteria and a decrease in anaerobic and potentially pathogenic bacteria. Differential indicator species analysis identified Firmicutes, Planctomycetes, Methylomirabilota and Actinobacteriota as key discriminators for the 1-, 5-, 10- and 15-year stages, respectively. Organic matter, alkaline phosphatase, soil pH, and available phosphorus were the primary physicochemical drivers of bacterial communities. Notably, soil organic matter significantly influenced both the community structure (p < 0.05) and predicted metabolic functions (p < 0.05). In conclusion, prolonged planting duration significantly enhanced rhizosphere microbial diversity and functional gene abundance in Z. bungeanum while driving the structural succession of bacterial communities dominated by Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Acidobacteriota, and Chloroflexi. This ecological shift, characterized by increased aerobic/oxidative-stress taxa and decreased anaerobic/pathogenic bacteria, was primarily regulated by soil organic matter, a key driver shaping both community structure and metabolic functions, ultimately improving soil microecological health.

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Keywords

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