Impact of drought stress on the rhizosphere bacterial community struc-ture of Capsicum annuum in Qiubei
In order to investigate the effects of root exudates from Qiubei pepper under drought stress on rhizosphere mi-crobial communities and their shaping,a pot experiment was conducted using controlled watering methods.Normal culti-vation was used as the control(CK),while drought cultivation served as the treatment(DS).The differences in bacterial community were analyzed using Illumina-MiSeq high-throughput sequencing technology.The results revealed that drought stress significantly reduced chlorophyll content and root vitality of pepper.Conversely,soluble sugar,proline,malondialdehyde content,and superoxide dismutase activity exhibited significant increases.Drought treatment notably de-creased bacterial community diversity indices(Chao1,Shannon,and Simpson).Furthermore,it was observed that CK and drought treatments displayed limited similarity in bacterial community structure with notable differences.Differential analysis demonstrated that drought treatment effectively promoted enrichment of beneficial microorganisms such as Acti-nobacteria and Mesorhizobium genus in rhizosphere soil.These findings provide novel insights into the adaptation mecha-nisms of Qiubei pepper under drought conditions and offer efficient cultivation strategies for peppers in rocky desertifica-tion areas.