Pear soil microbiome

The roles of plant genotypes on the assembly of soil microorganisms have been widely accepted, however, the effects of continuously cropping of different cultivars on soil microbial communities have not been fully understood. In this study, high-throughput amplicon sequencing and Real Time PCR was used to investigate the common features of bacterial community composition, ecological networks and physicochemical properties in three pear orchards simultaneously planted with Hosui (HS) and Sucui (SC) pear cultivars. A distinct difference of microbial community was observed between HS and SC copped soils. And a significantly higher relative abundance of Verrucomicrobia and Alphaproteobacteria was found in HS planted soils while a significantly higher relative abundance of Betaproteobacteria was observed in SC cropped soils. Sphingomonas sp. belonging to Alphaproteobacteria was further recognized as key species in the co-occurrence network severing as manipulating the microbial interactions. Moreover, soil pH as the dominating driver in assembling microbial communities in HS soils whereas soil organic matter as the primary factor in determining the microbial composition in SC soils was discovered based on redundancy analysis, Mantel test and random forest analysis. Altogether, we provide evidence that HS cropped soils harbor unique and well-organized microbial communities with the enrichments of microbial groups associated with nutrient cycling whereas SC cultivated soils dominated by a group of beneficial microbes regard to plant growth promotion. These findings have implications for science-based guidance for sustainable food production.