Abstract
As bacteria and archaea are key components in the ecosystem, information on their dynamics in soil profiles is important for understanding the biogeochemical cycles in peatlands. However, little is known about the vertical distribution patterns of bacteria and archaea in the Bitahai peatland, or about their relationships with soil chemical properties. Here, bacterial and archaeal abundance, diversity, and composition of the Bitahai peatlands at 0-100 cm soil depths were analyzed by sequencing of 16S rRNA genes (Illumina, MiSeq). Soil pH, total C, N, and P concentrations and stoichiometric ratios were also estimated. The results revealed that total C and total N contents, as well as C:P and N:P ratios, significantly increased with increasing peatland soil depths, while total P decreased. The top three dominant phyla were Proteobacteria (39.64%), Acidobacteria (12.93%), and Chloroflexi (12.81%) in bacterial communities, and were Crenarchaeota (58.67%), Thaumarchaeota (14.34%), and Euryarchaeota (10.82%) in archaeal communities in the Bitahai peatland, respectively. The total relative abundance of methanogenic groups and ammonia-oxidizing microorganisms all significantly decreased with soil depth. Both bacterial and archaeal diversities were significantly affected by the soil depth. Soil C, N, and P concentrations and stoichiometric ratios markedly impacted the community structure and diversity in archaea, but not in bacteria. Therefore, these results highlighted that the microbial community structure and diversity depended on soil depth for the Bitahai peatlands, and the factors affecting bacteria and archaea in the Bitahai peatlands were different.
Highlights
Peatlands cover only about 3% of the earth’s land area while storing nearly 30% of the global soil carbon (Dise 2009)
The relative abundances of the dominant bacteria groups significantly changed with soil depth at the phylum and class levels (p < 0.05)
The relative abundances of Betaproteobacteria, Alphaproteobacteria, and Acidobacteria significantly decreased with the peatland depths, while that of Deltaproteobacteria increased (Figure S2 a, b, c, d, e)
Summary
Peatlands cover only about 3% of the earth’s land area while storing nearly 30% of the global soil carbon (Dise 2009). Carbon storage in peat soils is so high that carbon cycling in peatland ecosystems plays an important role in global carbon cycling. As important decomposers, play key role in the carbon cycle of peatlands and in the overall ecosystem functioning. They do directly control the turnover of organic carbon and benefit nutrient mineralization and uptake (Andersen et al 2013). Soil microbes are related to the production of N2O, CH4 and CO2 (Liu et al 2020b), revealing their vertical distribution patterns would improve our understandings of nitrogen and carbon cycling in peatlands
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