Abstract
Legume–cereal rotation systems represent a vital pathway toward green, efficient, and resilient agriculture, with their ecological advantages derived from functional complementarity among species, nutrient redistribution, and coordinated regulation across soil–plant–microbial interfaces. Recent studies have made notable progress in understanding rhizosphere interaction networks, the biogeochemical processes underlying biological nitrogen fixation, microbial community succession and metabolic responses, and soil quality enhancement driven by carbon–nitrogen coupling, while advances in molecular ecology, high-throughput omics, precision monitoring, and system modeling have further deepened insights into rotation-based ecological processes. At the management level, strategies involving crop-combination optimization, planting-regime regulation, strengthened nitrogen-substitution effects, enhanced carbon-sequestration potential, and assessment of ecosystem-service values have gradually formed a practical and scalable framework. However, current research remains constrained by limited quantitative characterization of multi-factor interactions, insufficient long-term and cross-regional datasets, and uncertainties that affect the predictive accuracy of models. This study systematically reviews the research trajectory of legume–cereal rotation systems, synthesizes their core ecological mechanisms and sustainable management pathways, and highlights future priorities—including cross-scale process coupling, integration of mechanisms with models, and the development of intelligent decision-support systems—to sustain long-term agricultural productivity and ensure food security.
