Study on the Influence Mechanism of the Rhizosphere Soil Microbial Community and Physicochemical Factors on the Occurrence of Pepper Phytophthora Blight

In order to clarify the changes and correlations among microbial community structure and soil environmental factors in the rhizosphere soil of peppers under healthy and diseased conditions, Illumina MiSeq technology was used to perform high-throughput sequencing of the V3-V4 region of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene and the ITS hypervariable region of fungi in the rhizosphere soil of peppers. The dominant species and key environmental factors affecting the occurrence of pepper <i>Phytophthora</i> blight were analyzed and screened, and the functions of bacteria and fungi in the samples were predicted by PICRUSt2 and FUNGuild. The results showed that except for soil pH, the contents of microbial biomass carbon, magnesium, zinc, and iron in the rhizosphere soil of healthy peppers were significantly higher than those in the diseased soil. Alpha diversity analysis showed that the diversity index of the bacterial community in healthy soil was higher than that in diseased soil, while the diversity index of the fungal community was significantly lower than that in diseased soil. The relative abundance of beneficial bacteria such as Proteobacteria, Actinobacteriota, Burkholderiales, and Rhodanobacteraceae in the rhizosphere soil of healthy peppers was higher. Pathogens such as <i>Penicillium</i> and <i>Fusarium</i> were significantly enriched in the rhizosphere soil of diseased pepper plants. The functional prediction results showed that soil bacteria were mainly metabolized, including the biosynthesis of ansamycin, the biosynthesis of vancomycin antibiotics, the biosynthesis of valine, leucine, and isoleucine, the metabolism of C5-branched dicarboxylic acid, and the biosynthesis of fatty acids. The main nutritional strategies of the fungal community are disease prototype and saprophytic. Combined with the key environmental factors, microbial composition, and correlation analysis of pepper rhizosphere soil, it is speculated that the occurrence of pepper <i>Phytophthora</i> blight may be related to the synergistic effect of soil nutrients and microbial flora, which provides a theoretical basis for the biological control of pepper <i>Phytophthora</i> blight in the future.