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Bacillus megaterium strain KGA3 increases saline–alkaline tolerance of maize by recruiting keystone taxa in rhizosphere soil

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Abstract

Available phosphorus (AP) deficiency in severe saline–alkaline soil adversely affects crop growth. To increase soil AP and promote crop growth, a phosphorus-solubilizing bacteria (PSB) named KGA3, which is a strain of Bacillus megaterium, was inoculated on maize; A field experiment was conducted with CK (without KGA3) and KGA3 treatment. 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 different treatments to reveal the mechanism by which strain KGA3 promotes crop growth; Inoculation with KGA3 significantly increased contents of soil available nitrogen and potassium, activities of dehydrogenase and protease enzymes, and contents of the soil ions water-soluble K+, water-soluble Ca2+, and SO42–. According to co-occurrence network, bacterial community structure was stable with KGA3 treatment. In addition, the Cyanobacteria was specific keystone phyla in inoculated KGA3; We demonstrated that Bacillus megaterium KGA3 has potential as a biofertilizer to reduce the application of P fertilizers as well as increase crop productivity under severe saline-alkaline soils in semiarid regions.

Data availability

Accession number of raw sequencing sample data: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bioproject/1380082 BioProject ID: PRJNA1380082.

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Funding

This research was supported by the Introduced High-level Scientific Research Support in Inner Mongolia Institution, grant number 2022NMRC008 and This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, grant number 32201408. The Science and Technology Program of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, grant number 2022YFHH0144; National Key R&D Program of China, grant number 2023YFF1305303; Major Scientific and Technological Tasks of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, grant number CAAS-ZDRW202407; Key Special Projects of the “Science and Technology for Inner Mongolia Initiative”, grant number NMKJXM202401-04.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Yuan Xu and Shengnan Zhang.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of National Forestry and Grassland Administration on Grassland Resources and Ecology in the Yellow River Deltar, College of Grassland Science, Qingdao Agricultural University, Qingdao, Shandong, China

    Yuan Xu

  2. Institute of Grassland Research of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hohhot, 010010, China

    Yuan Xu, Xiangjian Tu, Lei Ji & Lijuan Jia

  3. Inner Mongolia Academy of Forestry, Hohhot, 010010, China

    Shengnan Zhang

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  1. Yuan Xu
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Contributions

Yuan Xu conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, prepared figures and/or tables, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, and approved the final draft. Shengnan Zhang conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, prepared figures and/or tables, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, and approved the final draft. Yuan Xu provided experimental equipment, prepared figures and/or tables, and revised the draft. These authors contribute equally to the work. Xiangjian Tu collected soil samples and provided experimental equipment. Lijuan Jia and Lei Ji conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, prepared figures and/or tables, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, and approved the final draft.

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Lei Ji or Lijuan Jia.

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Xu, Y., Zhang, S., Tu, X. et al. Bacillus megaterium strain KGA3 increases saline–alkaline tolerance of maize by recruiting keystone taxa in rhizosphere soil.
Sci Rep (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-44985-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-44985-5

Keywords

  • Severe saline–alkaline soil
  • 16S rRNA

  • Bacillus megaterium
  • Keystone taxa
  • Maize

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