Enhancing Soil Properties and Bacterial Community Dynamics in Tea Plantations through Intercropping Tea Trees and <i>Dictyophora indusiata</i>

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 <i>Dictyophora indusiata</i> 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 <i>D. indusiata</i> 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 <i>D. indusiata</i> 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.