The gummosis disease is caused by Botryosphaeria dothidea (Moug. ex. Fr) Ces. et de Not., and it is one of the most important diseases of stone fruits worldwide. The use of biocontrol as an alternative approach to synthetic chemical fungicides has aroused general concern about how to control plant diseases that are caused by phytopathogens. The aim of this study is to isolate Bacillus strains from raw honeys with the capacity to inhibit B. dothidea and to explore the mechanisms by which they could be used in the biocontrol of peach gummosis. Bacillus amyloliquefaciens SYBC H47 was isolated and identified on the basis of its physiological and biochemical characteristics and its 16S rRNA and gyrB gene sequences. The cell suspension and the cell-free supernatant of its culture showed significant antifungal activity against Aspergillus niger, Mucor racemosus, Fusarium oxysporum, Penicillium citrinum, and Candida albicans by agar-diffusion assays. The primary antifungal substances were bacillomycin L, fengycin, and surfactin, which were analyzed by HPLC LC/ESI-MS/MS. Bacillomycin L showed the best inhibitory effect against conidial germination of B. dothidea, followed by fengycin and surfactin. Surfactin had limited effects on mycelial growth, contrary to those of bacillomycin L and fengycin. However, a mixture of the three lipopeptides had a synergistic effect that disrupted the structure of the conidia and mycelia. In order to reduce the production cost, the use of waste frying peanut oil and soy oil as the sole carbon source increased the lipopeptide yield levels by approximately 17% (2.42 g/L) and 110% (4.35 g/L), respectively. In a field trial, the decreases in the infected gummosis rate (IGR) and the disease severity index (DSI) through cell suspension treatments were 20% and 57.5% (in 2014), respectively, and 40% and 57.5% (in 2015), respectively, in comparison with the control. In conclusion, B. amyloliquefaciens SYBC H47 could inhibit the germination of conidia and the growth of mycelia from B. dothidea; therefore, this strain behaves as a potential biocontrol agent against the gummosis disease.

Soil bacteria are important drivers of biogeochemical cycles and participate in many nutrient transformations in the soil. Meanwhile, bacterial diversity and community composition are related to soil physic-chemical properties and vegetation factors. However, how the soil and vegetation factors affect the diversity and community composition of bacteria is poorly understood, especially for bacteria associated with evergreen and deciduous trees in subtropical forest ecosystems. In the present paper, the microbial communities of rhizospheric soils associated with different types of trees were analyzed by Illumina MiSeq sequencing the V3-V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene. A total of 121,219 effective 16S rRNA gene sequences were obtained, which were classified into 29 bacterial phyla and 2 archaeal phyla. The dominant phyla across all samples (>5% of good-quality sequences in each sample) were Proteobacteria, Acidobacteria, Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes. The bacterial community composition and diversity were largely affected by both soil pH and tree species. The soil pH was the key factor influencing bacterial diversity, with lower pH associated with less diverse communities. Meanwhile, the contents of NO₃⁻ were higher in evergreen tree soils than those associated with deciduous trees, while less NH₄⁺ than those associated with deciduous trees, leading to a lower pH and indirectly influencing the diversity and composition of the bacteria. The co-occurrence patterns were assessed by network analysis. A total of 415 pairs of significant and robust correlations (co-occurrence and negative) were identified from 89 genera. Sixteen hubs of co-occurrence patterns, mainly under the phyla Acidobacteria, Proteobacteria, Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes, may play important roles in sustaining the stability of the rhizospheric microbial communities. In general, our results suggested that local environmental conditions and soil pH were important in shaping the bacterial community of the Taihu Lake zone in east China.