Keystone microbiome in the rhizosphere soil reveals the effect of long-term conservation tillage on crop growth in the Chinese Loess Plateau

Purpose Keystone taxa play an important role in soil nutrient cycling and crop growth and can be influenced by soil tillage. We investigated the composition of keystone taxa and their relationships with soil properties under different long-term tillage practices. Methods Four tillage treatments (i.e., CT, conventional tillage; NT, no tillage with mulch; RT, reduced tillage; and SS, subsoiling with mulch) were maintained for twenty-one years. Co-occurrence network (CoNet) was constructed to identify the keystone taxa, and redundancy analysis (RDA) was carried out to explore the relationships between keystone taxa and soil properties under the four tillage practices at two growth stages (elongation and grain filling stages) of winter wheat. Results Compared with CT, RT had no significant effect on the microbial community and the keystone microbiome, while NT and SS remarkably altered the microbial community structure and the keystone microbiome at both growth stages. Massilia was the keystone genus under CT and RT, while Sphingomonas, Asanoa and Hoeflea were the keystone genera under NT and SS. RDA results showed that keystone genera were significantly correlated with soil organic carbon (SOC), dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and microbial biomass nitrogen (MBN) at both stages, especially at the elongation stage. Our results further revealed that the effects of NT and SS on crop growth might be related to the changes in keystone microbiome. Conclusion Our study suggests that NT and SS may contribute to the development of sustainable agricultural production in the Chinese Loess Plateau.