Rhizosphere Microbial Community Shows a Greater Response Than Soil Properties to Tea (Camellia sinensis L.) Cultivars

Rhizosphere microbes play pivotal roles in regulating the soil ecosystem by influencing and directly participating in the nutrient cycle. Evidence shows that the rhizosphere microbes are highly dependent on plant genotype and cultivars; however, their characteristics in soils with different tea (Camellia sinensis L.) cultivars are poorly understood. Therefore, the present study investigated the rhizosphere soil properties, microbial community composition, and their potential functions under four tea cultivars Huangjinya (HJY), Tieguanyin (TGY), Zhongcha No.108 (ZC108), and Zijuan (ZJ). The study found a minor impact of cultivars on rhizosphere soil properties but a significant influence on microbial community structure. Except for available potassium (AK) (HJY > TGY > ZC108 > ZJ), tea cultivars had no significant impact on other soil properties. The tea cultivars resulted in substantial differences only in the diversity of soil bacteria of lower taxonomic levels (family to species), as well as significantly changed communities’ structure of bacteria and fungi (R2 = 0.184, p = 0.013 and R2 = 0.226, p = 0.001). Specifically, Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Chloroflexi, Acidobacteriota, and Firmicutes accounted for approximately 96% of the bacterial phyla in the tea soils, while Ascomycota, Mortierellomycota, Rozellomycota, Basidiomycota, and Monoblepharomycota (90% of the total) predominated the soil fungal community. Redundancy analysis (RDA) identified soil pH (14.53%) and ammonium-nitrogen (NH4+-N; 16.74%) as the key factors for the changes in bacterial and fungal communities, respectively. Finally, FAPROTAX analysis predicted significant differences in the carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur (C-N-S)-cycling among the soils with different tea cultivars, specifically, ZJ cultivar showed the highest C-cycling but the lowest N- and S-cycling, while FUNGuild analysis revealed that the pathotroph group was significantly lower in ZC108 than the other cultivars. These findings improve our understanding of the differences in microbial community characteristics among tea cultivars and provide a basis for precisely selecting and introducing excellent tea varieties in the agriculture practices.