Tea Plant/ Ophiopogon japonicus Intercropping Drives the Reshaping of Soil Microbial Communities in Terraced Tea Plantation’s Micro-Topographical Units

Yangxin Li, Le Sun, Jialin Zhang, Hongxue Zhao, Tejia Su, Wenhui Li, Linkun Wu, Pumo Cai, Christopher Rensing, Yuanping Li, Jianming Zhang, Feiquan Wang and Qisong Li ()
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Yangxin Li: College of Tea and Food Science, Wuyi University, Wuyishan 354300, China
Le Sun: College of Tea and Food Science, Wuyi University, Wuyishan 354300, China
Jialin Zhang: College of Tourism, Xinyang Vocational and Technical College, Xinyang 464000, China
Hongxue Zhao: College of Tea and Food Science, Wuyi University, Wuyishan 354300, China
Tejia Su: College of Tea and Food Science, Wuyi University, Wuyishan 354300, China
Wenhui Li: College of Tea and Food Science, Wuyi University, Wuyishan 354300, China
Linkun Wu: College of Life Sciences, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou 350002, China
Pumo Cai: College of Tea and Food Science, Wuyi University, Wuyishan 354300, China
Christopher Rensing: Institute of Environmental Microbiology, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou 350002, China
Yuanping Li: College of Tea and Food Science, Wuyi University, Wuyishan 354300, China
Jianming Zhang: College of Tea and Food Science, Wuyi University, Wuyishan 354300, China
Feiquan Wang: College of Tea and Food Science, Wuyi University, Wuyishan 354300, China
Qisong Li: College of Tea and Food Science, Wuyi University, Wuyishan 354300, China

Agriculture, 2025, vol. 15, issue 11, 1-22

Abstract: The monoculture planting in terraced tea plantations has led to severe soil degradation, which poses a significant threat to the growth of tea plants. However, the mechanisms by which intercropping systems improve soil health through the regulation of soil microbial communities at the micro-topographical scale of terraced tea plantations (i.e., terrace surface, inter-row, and terrace wall) remain unclear. This study investigates the effects of intercropping Ophiopogon japonicus in a five-year tea plantation on the soil physicochemical properties, enzyme activities, and microbial community structure and functions across different micro-topographical features of terraced tea plantations in Wuyi Mountain. The results indicate that intercropping significantly improved the soil organic matter, available nutrients, and redox enzyme activities in the inter-row, terrace surface, and terrace wall, with the effects gradually decreasing with increasing distance from the tea plant rhizosphere. In the intercropping group, tea leaf yield increased by 13.17% (fresh weight) and 19.29% (dry weight) compared to monoculture, and the disease indices of new and old leaves decreased by 40.63% and 38.7%, respectively. Intercropping strengthened the modularity of bacterial networks and the role of stochasticity in shaping bacterial communities in different micro-topographic environments, in contrast to the patterns observed in fungal communities. The importance of microbial phyla such as Proteobacteria and Ascomycota in different micro-topographical features was significantly regulated by intercropping. In different micro-topographical zones of the terraced tea plantation, beneficial bacterial genera such as Sinomonas , Arthrobacter , and Ferruginibacter were significantly enriched, whereas potential fungal pathogens like Nigrospora , Microdochium , and Periconia were markedly suppressed. Functional annotations revealed that nitrogen cycling functions were particularly enhanced in inter-row soils, while carbon cycling functions were more prominent on the terrace surface and wall. This study sheds light on the synergistic regulatory mechanisms between micro-topographical heterogeneity and intercropping systems, offering theoretical support for mitigating soil degradation and optimizing management strategies in terraced tea agroecosystems.

Keywords: tea plantation; high-throughput sequencing; microbial community; micro-topography (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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