Biodiv Sci ›› 2015, Vol. 23 ›› Issue (5): 649-657.  DOI: 10.17520/biods.2015032

Special Issue: 森林动态监测样地专题 土壤生物与土壤健康

• Special Feature: Forest Dynamics Monitoring • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Soil bacterial diversity in the Baotianman deciduous broad-leaved forest

Aihua Zhao1,2, Xiaojun Du1,*(), Jing Zang1, Shouren Zhang1, Zhihua Jiao3   

  1. 1 State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093
    2 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049
    3 School of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, China University of Mining & Technology (Beijing), Beijing 100083;
  • Received:2015-02-10 Accepted:2015-02-10 Online:2015-09-20 Published:2015-10-12
  • Contact: Du Xiaojun

Abstract:

Soil microbes play an essential role in forest ecosystems. The development of the high-throughput sequencing method provides an invaluable opportunity to further understand soil microbial communities. In this study, we investigated soil bacterial diversity in the Baotianman forest using the Illumina Miseq platform. Results showed that in the 31 soil sampling points, the number of bacterial taxa detected at different classification levels increased with increasing number of sampling points. When all 31 samples were considered, the number of relative bacterial groups included 45 phyla, 163 classes, 319 orders, 495 families, 785 genera and 42,632 OTUs. The mean values of relative bacterial taxa in the 31 samples were 34.2 phyla, 114.7 classes, 215.2 orders, 323.7 families, 446.6 genera, and 5,924.7 OTUs. At the classification level of phylum, class and order, the dominant groups were Proteobacteria (38.30%), α-Proteobacteria (18.08%), and Rhizobiales (10.62%), respectively. These preliminary findings suggest that Baotianman forest soils have high levels of bacterial diversity to some degree and provide basic information and knowledge to further understand the relationship between soil bacterial diversity and plant diversity and other related scientific questions.

Key words: forest, soil microbe, bacterial diversity, high-throughput sequencing, Proteobacteria, α-Proteobacteria, Rhizobiales, Baotianman National Nature Reserve