title: Vegetation cover of forest, shrub and pasture strongly influences soil bacterial community structure as revealed by 16S rRNA gene T-RFLP analysis.
abstract: Bacterial community structure is influenced by vegetation, climate and soil chemical properties. To evaluate these influences, terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) and cloning of the 16S rRNA gene were used to analyze the soil bacterial communities in different ecosystems in southwestern China. We compared (1) broad-leaved forest, shrub and pastures in a high-plateau region, (2) three broad-leaved forests representing a climate gradient from high-plateau temperate to subtropical and tropical regions and (3) the humus and mineral soil layers of forests, shrub lands and pastures with open and restricted grazing activities, having varied soil carbon and nutrient contents. Principal component analysis of the T-RFLP patterns revealed that soil bacterial communities of the three vegetation types were distinct. The broad-leaved forests in different climates clustered together, and relatively minor differences were observed between the soil layers or the grazing regimes. Acidobacteria dominated the broad-leaved forests (comprising 62% of the total clone sequences), but exhibited lower relative abundances in the soils of shrub (31%) and pasture (23%). Betaproteobacteria was another dominant taxa of shrub land (31%), whereas Alpha- (19%) and Gammaproteobacteria (13%) and Bacteriodetes (16%) were major components of pasture. Vegetation exerted more pronounced influences than climate and soil chemical properties.
authors.affiliation: Department of Forest Ecosystem, Soil Ecology Group, The Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Kunming, Yunnan, China. onchim@xtbg.ac.cn
authors.forename: On
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Chim Chan
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Casper
authors.forename: Li Qing
authors.initials: LQ
authors.lastname: Sha
authors.forename: Zhi Li
authors.initials: ZL
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.forename: Yun
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Fu
authors.forename: Xiao Dong
authors.initials: XD
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ulrich
authors.forename: Xiao Ming
authors.initials: XM
authors.lastname: Zou
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D002681:China; D002980:Climate; D016172:DNA Fingerprinting; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D004275:DNA, Ribosomal / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D020459:Genes, rRNA; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D010944:Plants; D012150:Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length; D012329:RNA, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S / Q000235:genetics; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid; D012988:Soil Microbiology; D013223:Statistics as Topic
chemical_list: D004269:DNA, Bacterial; D004275:DNA, Ribosomal; D012329:RNA, Bacterial; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S