Floodplain soil and its bacterial composition are strongly affected by depth.

Abstract

We studied bacterial abundance and community structure of five soil cores using high-throughput sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene. Shifts in the soil bacterial composition were more pronounced within a vertical profile than across the landscape. Soil organic carbon (SOC) and nitrogen (N) concentrations decreased exponentially with soil depth and revealed a buried carbon-rich horizon between 0.8 and 1.3 m across all soil cores. This buried horizon was phylogenetically similar to its surrounding subsoils supporting the idea that the type of carbon, not necessarily the amount of carbon was driving the apparent similarities. In contrast to other studies, Nitrospirae was one of our major phyla with relatively high abundances throughout the soil profile except for the surface soil. Although depth is the major driver shaping soil bacterial community structure, positive correlations with SOC and N concentrations, however, were revealed with the bacterial abundance of Acidobacteria, one of the major, and Gemmatimonadetes, one of the minor phyla in our study. Our study showed that bacterial diversity in soils below 2.0 m can be still as high if not higher than in the above laying subsurface soil suggesting that various bacteria throughout the soil profile influence major biogeochemical processes in floodplain soils.