Bacterial diversity in tea plant (Camellia sinensis) rhizosphere soil from Qinling Mountains and its relationship with environmental elements

Aims The bacterial diversity in rhizosphere soil is closely associated with its environmental factors, such as, pH, moisture and organic contents. The aims of this study were to understand the bacterial diversity in tea plant Camellia sinensis rhizosphere soils and explore its relationship with major organic elements, water, and pH in tea plant rhizosphere soil. Methods The tea plant rhizosphere soils were randomly collected from five locations at the south side of Qinling Mountains. The bacterial diversity in the soil was determined by high-throughput amplicon sequencing technology. The organic elements, pH and moisture in the soil were measured using traditional analysis methods. The correlations between bacterial diversity and environmental elements were analyzed by using the General Linear Model (GLM), Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA) and Spearman's rank correlation coefficients methods. Results Acidobacteria, Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Chloroflexi, Gemmatimonadetes, Planctomycetes, Proteobacteria and Verrucomicrobia were the dominant phyla in the soil samples. Water content, pH, organic carbon and total nitrogen were the environmental elements that had the greatest correlation with the bacterial diversity in the rhizosphere soil samples. Nitrogen had the greatest effect on the bacterial diversity at genus level. Carbon, potassium, water and pH were positively correlated with Pedobacter and Mucilaginibacter genera. Conclusions The bacterial diversity in tea plant rhizosphere is closely associated with its environmental elements. The soil elements in tea plant rhizosphere could also be adjusted through the change of rhizobacteria diversity besides chemical fertilization.

Automated summary

The study found that the bacterial diversity in tea plant rhizosphere soil is closely related to water content, pH, organic carbon, and total nitrogen. Nitrogen has the greatest impact on bacterial diversity, while carbon, potassium, water, and pH are positively correlated with the abundance of Pedobacter and Mucilaginibacter genera.