Interpretation of bacterial composition patterns and community assembly processes in the rhizosphere soil of tea trees in karst areas.

Research background and purpose: Soil microorganisms that are closely related to plants are important factors affecting plant health. Therefore, elucidating the abundant and rare bacterial species in soil associated with plant diseases is crucial for understanding ecological processes, maintaining the stability of microecological environments, and formulating microbial strategies that are consistent with modern agricultural development.

Results: Tea leaf blight leads to an increase in bacterial diversity in the rhizosphere. Random processes dominate the assembly of abundant and rare taxa, while abundant taxa are also influenced by deterministic processes. In the co-occurrence network, the increase in bacterial community diversity mediated by tea cloud leaf blight enhances the stability of the network. Meanwhile, the proportion of positive correlation between rare taxa is relatively high, and the relationship between rare taxa and intermediate taxa is closer. This highly diverse bacteria community maintained the structure and stability of the community to a certain extent.

Conclusion: The rare taxa in the rhizosphere and the rhizosphere bacterial community mediated by tea leaf blight have high diversity, which is of great significance for maintaining the stability of the rhizosphere bacterial ecological network. In the future, we will further explore the dynamic changes and interaction patterns of the species in the rhizosphere soil affected by tea tree diseases, and their ecological functions and importance in areas of habitat fragmentation. Overall, there are many microbial resources in the rhizosphere microbiota under the influence of plant diseases that can be used for agricultural practice. The results of this study will enrich the insights into ecodynamics of bacteria in karst areas, especially in karst tea gardens.