Yeqing Guan, Yang Zhang, Congcong Gao, Yudou Cheng, Junfeng Guan
• Ozone treatment at 5 μL/L significantly reduced the decay of ‘Yuluxiang’ pear fruit. • Ozone treatment changed the volatile organic components of fruit. • Ozone treatment especially reduced the abundance of Botryosphaeria and Gluconobacter . ‘Yuluxiang’ pear fruit are susceptible to postharvest decay when mechanically damaged. Ozone treatment effectively reduces decay and extends shelf life. To explore its effect and mechanism, we treated ‘Yuluxiang’ pear fruit with different concentrations of ozone (0, 2.5, 5 and 10 μL/L) after 6 months of cold storage at 0 °C and stored them at room temperature (20 °C). It was found that an ozone concentration of 5 μL/L significantly inhibited fruit decay without markedly affecting the fruit firmness during the shelf life, while it changed the soluble solids content (SSC) and volatile organic components (VOCs) of the fruit. Through high-throughput sequencing, it was found that Botryosphaeria, Alternaria, Fusarium, Cladosporium , and Aureobasidium were abundant in fungi on the surface of pear fruit, while Gluconobacter, Pantoea, Curtobacterium , and Methylobacterium-Methylorubrum were abundant in bacteria. Alpha and beta diversity analysis showed that ozone treatment significantly reduced the diversity of microbial fungi and bacteria. The dominant variation of the abundance of fungi genus Botryosphaeria and bacteria genus Gluconobacter indicated that they were the main pathogens causing pear fruit decay. Microbial network analysis showed that the close correlation between fungi and bacteria regulated the stability of microbiota. Our results demonstrate that ozone reduced the decay of pear fruit during shelf life by altering the composition of fungal and bacterial communities. This finding not only fills the knowledge gap regarding the mechanism of ozone-mediated fruit preservation for pear fruit, but also provides a scientific basis for the application of ozone treatment in fruit storage.