Phosphorus is a “life element” for crop growth. However, about one-third of agricultural soils in China and globally are facing a shortage of bioavailable phosphorus. On the one hand, the current-season utilization rate of phosphate fertilizer is extremely low, and a large amount of applied phosphorus is “locked” by soil, forming “legacy phosphorus” that is difficult for crops to use. On the other hand, long-term dependence on phosphate fertilizer has become a potential threat to national food security and ecological security. Vermicompost, as an organic amendment rich in beneficial microorganisms, has been proven to effectively activate soil phosphorus, but the specific microbial mechanisms involved have not yet been systematically revealed.
The team led by Jun ZHOU at the Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in collaboration with the team led by Hongtao ZHONG at the College of Environment and Ecology, Xiamen University, published a review paper titled “Microbial mechanisms enhancing soil phosphorus bioavailability through vermicompost application for sustainable agriculture” in ENGINEERING Agriculture (DOI: 10.15302/J-FASE-2026672). The article systematically analyzed three core mechanisms by which vermicompost-derived microorganisms activate soil “legacy phosphorus,” laying a theoretical foundation for the development of green and efficient biological phosphate fertilizers.
Traditional studies have mostly focused on the activation of phosphorus by biochemical substances such as phosphatases directly introduced by vermicompost. However, understanding remains limited regarding deeper mechanisms: how the microbial communities it carries colonize soil, how they interact with native microorganisms (synergistically or competitively), and how phosphorus in microbial cells is released and cycled after microbial death and lysis. As a result, the scientific community currently knows only the surface phenomenon of “phosphorus activation” but has not fully elucidated the underlying microbial driving mechanisms and ecological processes. Therefore, systematically revealing the microbiological mechanisms by which vermicompost regulates soil phosphorus cycling is a core issue urgently needing breakthrough in current agricultural microbial ecology research.
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