| Summary: | Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are essential components of the soil microbiome that can facilitate plant growth and enhance abiotic and biotic stress resistance. However, the mechanisms via which AMF inoculation influences <i>Cucurbita pepo</i> L. plant growth and fruit yield remain unclear. Here, we conducted pot experiments to investigate bacterial and fungal community structure in the rhizosphere of <i>C. pepo</i> plants inoculated with <i>Funneliformis mosseae</i> (Nicoll. & Gerd.) Gerd. & Trappe based on 16S ribosomal RNA and internal transcribed spacer gene sequencing. The α-diversity of bacteria increased significantly following <i>F. mosseae</i> inoculation, whereas the α-diversity of fungi exhibited an opposite trend (<i>p</i> < 0.01). The relative abundances of major bacterial phyla, Actinobacteria, Acidobacteria, and Chloroflexi, together with the fungal phylum Ascomycota, were all higher in inoculated samples than in uninoculated controls. <i>F. mosseae</i> inoculation led to remarkable enrichment of potentially beneficial taxa (e.g., <i>Streptomyces</i>, <i>Sphingomonas</i>, <i>Lysobacter</i>, and <i>Trichoderma</i>), in stark contrast to depletion of fungal pathogens (e.g., <i>Botryotrichum</i>, <i>Acremonium</i>, <i>Fusarium</i>, and <i>Plectosphaerella</i>). Pathways related to amino acid metabolism and antibiotic biosynthesis were upregulated by <i>F. mosseae</i> inoculation, whereas pathways involved in infectious diseases were downregulated. The results suggest that <i>F. mosseae</i> inoculation reshapes the rhizosphere microbiome, thereby augmenting <i>C. pepo</i> plant growth and fruit yield.
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