Large-scale structure, composition, and diversity of soil bacterial and
fungal communities in ancient tea plantations
Abstract
The ecosystem of tea plantations portrays a special interaction among
environment, soil microorganisms and tea trees. Under the influence of
environmental factors and human management, the growth, quality, yield
of tea trees and the tea leaves may also be dependent upon the changes
in the soil microbial community. However, little is known about the
composition and structure of soil bacterial and fungal communities in
hundred-year-old tea plantations and the mechanisms by which they are
affected. In this regard, we characterized the microbiome of tea
plantation soils by considering the bacterial and fungal communities in
448 soil samples from 101 ancient tea plantations in eight counties of
Lincang city, which is one of domestication centers of tea trees in the
world. We applied 16S and ITS rRNA high-throughput sequencing
techniques, and found that the effect of pH and altitude changes on the
relative abundance of fungal communities was more pronounced than that
on bacteria. In terms of the influence of pH and altitude on soil
microbial communities, the abundance and diversity of bacterial
communities were more sensitive to pH than those of fungi. The
α-diversity of bacterial communities peaked in the pH 4.50-5.00 and
altitude 2,200 m group, and the highest α-diversity of fungi showed in
the pH 5.00-5.50 and 900 m group. While all microbes varied similarly
changing with environment and geographies, and further correlations were
found that the composition and structure of bacterial communities were
more sensitive to latitude and altitude than that of fungal communities.