Effects of Plant Fine Root Functional Traits and Soil Nutrients on the Diversity of Rhizosphere Microbial Communities in Tropical Cloud Forests in a Dry Season

Abstract

The composition and diversity of rhizosphere microbial communities may be due to root–soil–microbial interactions. The fine root functional traits and rhizosphere soil environmental factors of 13 representative plants in the Bawangling tropical cloud forest of Hainan Island were measured, to assess the key factors driving plant rhizosphere microbial communities. Illumina MiSeq sequencing technology was used to sequence the v3-V4 region of the 16SrDNA gene of 13 plant rhizosphere soil bacteria and the ITS1 region of the fungal ITSrDNA gene. Results showed that there were 355 families, 638 genera, and 719 species of rhizosphere soil bacteria as well as 29 families, 31 genera, and 31 species of rhizosphere soil fungi in the tropical cloud forests. The fine root traits, such as root phosphorus content, the specific root length and specific root area, were significantly negatively correlated with the Faith-pd indices of the bacterial community but were not correlated with the diversity of fungi communities. The soil pH was significantly and positively correlated with the Chao1 index, OTUs, Faith-pd and Simpson indices of the bacteria and fungi communities. The soil available phosphorus content was significantly and negatively correlated with the bacteria Simpson and the fungus Faith-pd indices. ABT analysis showed that soil pH and soil available phosphorus were the most important environmental conditions contributing to the rhizosphere bacterial and fungi communities, respectively. Our findings demonstrate that the soil environments had more influence on rhizosphere soil microbial diversity than the fine root functional traits.