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. 2025 Sep 2:16:1647493.
doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1647493. eCollection 2025.

Tobacco intercropping enhances soil fertility by improving synergic interactions between soil physicochemical and microbial properties

Kaiyuan Gu #  1   2 , Xianglu Liu #  1 , Ming Liu  1   2 , Xu Wei  1 , Juan Li  2 , Yanxia Hu  2 , Yonglei Jiang  3 , Yi Chen  3 , Dexun Wang  2 , Yanming Yang  2 , Jiaen Su  2 , Longchang Wang  1
Affiliations

Tobacco intercropping enhances soil fertility by improving synergic interactions between soil physicochemical and microbial properties

Kaiyuan Gu et al. Front Microbiol. .

Abstract

Introduction: Intercropping tobacco with other crops has been shown to upregulate soil health by fostering synergistic interactions between physicochemical and microbial properties. This study aims to evaluate the impact of intercropping on physicochemical attributes, rhizospheric microbial community, and functional dynamics of soil cultivated with tobacco plants.

Methods: A field experiment was comprised with five treatments, such as tobacco monoculture (TT), soybean monoculture (SS), maize monoculture (MM), tobacco-soybean intercropping (TS), and tobacco-maize intercropping (TM). Soil nutrients observed, while bacterial and fungal community profiles were assessed through high-throughput sequencing targeting the 16S rDNA and ITS hypervariable regions. Microbial interactions and network resilience were assessed through co-occurrence network analysis.

Results: Intercropping significantly improved the soil nutrient properties. Compared with tobacco monoculture (TT), the tobacco-soybean intercropping (TS) treatment enhanced cation exchange capacity (CEC), total nitrogen (TN), available phosphorus (AP), and available potassium (AK) by 13.9, 13.9, 43.8, and 129.1%, respectively. Tobacco-maize intercropping (TM) enhanced CEC (26.7%) and AK (9.7%). Both intercropping models significantly increased bacterial species richness in tobacco soil, whereas fungal diversity was more pronounced under monoculture conditions. Intercropping favored the proliferation of Proteobacteria and Basidiomycota, while concurrently suppressing Ascomycota. Tobacco-maize intercropping specifically augmented nitrifying bacteria and Actinobacteria, while tobacco-soybean intercropping predominantly facilitated the recruitment of symbiotic fungi. Intercropping intensified microbial network complexity and modularity, upregulate ecosystem resilience to disturbances. Mantel analysis indicated that the bacterial community structure was primarily influenced by soil pH, whereas fungal communities exhibited strong combinations with available potassium and phosphorus.

Discussion: Intercropping systems substantially improved soil ecological functionality by modulating microbial community composition and nutrient dynamics. Tobacco-maize intercropping reinforced soil ecosystem stability through enrichment of functional microorganisms and optimization of community architecture, while tobacco-soybean intercropping leveraged nitrogen fixation by legumes to augment nitrogen availability and facilitate the establishment of nitrogen-cycling microbes, demonstrating superior efficacy in enhancing soil fertility. These findings suggest that tobacco intercropping can be sustainable agricultural strategy to maintain soil health and productivity in the era of climate change.

Keywords: microbial network complexity; nitrogen-fixing symbiosis; soil ecosystem resilience; soil microbiome; soil nutrient cycling.

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Conflict of interest statement

KG, ML, JL, YH, DW, YY, JS were employed by Yunnan Tobacco Company. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. The reviewer YL declared a shared parent affiliation with the author YJ to the handling editor at the time of review.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) of soil microbial communities at the genus level based on Bray–Curtis distances. PCoA of soil bacterial communities at the genus level (a), and PCoA of soil fungal communities at the genus level (b).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Microbial community composition at the phylum and genus levels. Bacterial community composition at the phylum level (a), bacterial community composition at the genus level (b), fungal community composition at the phylum level (c), and fungal community composition at the genus level (d).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Differential taxonomic cladograms of soil bacterial and fungal communities from phylum to genus level based on LEfSe analysis. Differential taxonomic cladogram of bacterial communities from phylum to genus level (a), and differential taxonomic cladogram of fungal communities from phylum to genus level (b).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Functional prediction of soil microbial communities under different cropping systems. Predicted bacterial functions at KEGG level 1 based on PICRUSt2 (a), Predicted bacterial functions at KEGG level 2, highlighting key functional gene categories (b), Fungal functional guilds predicted by trophic modes using the FUNGuild database (c), Relative abundance of top 20 fungal functional guilds as classified by FUNGuild (d).
Figure 5
Figure 5
Microbial network interactions under different treatments. Nodes were colored according to different modularity classes. The size of each node is proportional to its degree. Red edges indicate positive correlations, while green edges indicate negative correlations.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Changes in microbial network natural connectivity with increasing node removal under different treatments. Changes in natural connectivity of bacterial networks under different treatments during sequential node removal (a), and changes in natural connectivity of fungal networks under different treatments during sequential node removal (b).
Figure 7
Figure 7
Mantel analysis of the relationships between soil environmental factors and microbial community structure under different cropping systems.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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