Lian  Chen¹ , Lianming  Zhang²

1 Institute of Life Sciences, Jiyang Colloge of Zhejiang A&F University, Zhuji, 311800, Zhejiang, China
2 Traditional Chinese Medicine Research Center, Cuixi Academy of Biotechnology, Zhuji, 311800, China
Author    Correspondence author
Molecular Soil Biology, 2026, Vol. 17, No. 1   
Received: 03 Jan., 2026    Accepted: 05 Feb., 2026    Published: 18 Feb., 2026

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Acidic tea garden soils generally exhibit low pH, abundant aluminum-iron oxides, and easily leachable base ions, which result in the adsorption of phosphorus on mineral surfaces or its precipitation with metal ions, thereby "fixing" the available phosphorus and keeping it in a restricted state for a long time. Faced with this bottleneck, phosphate-solubilizing bacteria promote the dissolution of inorganic phosphorus and the mineralization of organic phosphorus through secreting organic acids, chelating metals, and producing phosphatases, making them an important microbial resource for improving the efficient utilization of phosphorus in tea gardens. In recent years, high-throughput sequencing, functional gene markers (such as phoD, gcd/pqq), and metagenomics have advanced our understanding of the community structure and functional potential of phosphate-solubilizing bacteria, particularly revealing that soil acidification can significantly alter the phoD carrying community and reduce the phosphorus activation ability. Based on the analysis of the phosphorus availability limitation mechanism in acidic tea garden soils, this paper comprehensively discusses the diversity pattern, molecular mechanism, and environmental driving factors of phosphate-solubilizing bacteria, and further evaluates the selection of dominant strains, the development of microbial agents, and the requirements for ecological safety. It proposes a research prospect of multi-omics integration and precise microbial regulation.

Acidic tea garden soil; Phosphorus availability; Phosphate-solubilizing bacteria; phoD; gcd/pqq; metagenomics; PICRUSt2; Microbial inoculant