Abstract:Aiming to explore the effects of short-term rotation of tomato at different nitrogen application rates on the structure of soil microbial communities in dry-hot regions of Yunnan, a rotation-subsequent crop experiment was conducted from 2023 to 2025, with four rotation systems (corn-tomato (CT), soybean-tomato (ST), peanut-tomato (PT), and tomato-tomato (TT)) and three nitrogen levels (50% (N1), 75% (N2), and 100% (N3) of the conventional nitrogen rate) established for each crop. Amplicon sequencing based on Illumina sequencing technology was employed to explore the responses of soil microbial communities to different rotation patterns at varying nitrogen rates. The results showed that the soil bacterial communities of all treatments were dominated by Proteobacteria, Chloroflexota, Actinobacteriota and Acidobacteriota at harvest, while the fungal communities were dominated by Ascomycota. At the genus level, Fusarium was the most dominant fungal genus of all treatments. The relative abundance of Fusarium was the highest under TT treatment and increased with the increase of nitrogen rate (TTN3: 44.47%), while relatively low abundances were observed under STN2 (14.76%) and PTN1 (14.71%) treatments. In addition, the variation trends of its relative abundance with nitrogen rates differed among different rotation treatments. The relative abundance of Trichoderma, a beneficial fungal genus, was the highest under CTN1 treatment (11.36%). Rotation significantly increased the diversity of soil microbial communities, and the Shannon and Simpson indices of bacteria and fungi under STN2 treatment both reached the maximum values, which were significantly higher than those of other treatments. In contrast, the Shannon indices of bacteria and fungi under TT treatment were significantly lower than those under rotation treatments, and both exhibited a trend of first increasing and then decreasing with the increase of nitrogen rate. There were significant differences in the bacterial community structure between different rotation and continuous cropping treatments (P=0.001, R2=0.398, stress was 0.127), while no significant differences were observed in the fungal community structure (P=0.597, R2=0.308, stress was 0.197). Rotation significantly increased tomato yield, and under the same rotation pattern, it was increased first and then decreased with the increase in nitrogen rate. Compared with TT treatment, the yield of rotation treatments significantly increased by an average of 3.19%, and CTN2 treatment achieved the highest yield (116.6 t/hm2). In conclusion, short-term continuous cropping may increase the risk of continuous cropping obstacles, while short-term rotation was conducive to inhibiting the proliferation of pathogenic bacteria, improving the structure of soil microbial communities, and thereby increasing tomato yield, which can provide a theoretical basis for the sustainable agricultural development in this region.