Characterization of bacterial community structure and diversity in rhizosphere soils of three plants in rapidly changing salt marshes using 16S rDNA

The structure and diversity of the bacterial communities in rhizosphere soils of native Phragmites australis and Scirpus mariqueter and alien Spartina alterniflora in the Yangtze River Estuary were investigated by constructing 16S ribosomal DNA (rDNA) clone libraries. The bacterial diversity was quantified by placing the clones into operational taxonomic unit (OTU) groups at the level of sequence similarity of > 97%. Phylogenetic analysis of the resulting 398 clone sequences indicated a high diversity of bacteria in the rhizosphere soils of these plants. The members of Alphaproteobacteria, Betaproteobacteria, Gammaproteobacteria, and Deltaproteobacteria of the phylum Proteobacteria were the most abundant in rhizobacteria. Chao I nonparametric diversity estimator coupled with the reciprocal of Simpson's index (1/D) was applied to sequence data obtained from each library to evaluate total sequence diversity and quantitatively compare the level of dominance. The results showed that Phragmites, Scirpus, and Spartina rhizosphere soils contained 200, 668, and 382 OTUs, respectively. The bacterial communities in the Spartina and Phragmites rhizosphere soils displayed species dominance revealed by 1/D, whereas the bacterial community in Scirpus rhizosphere soil had uniform distributions of species abundance. Overall, analysis of 16S rDNA clone libraries from the rhizosphere soils indicates that the changes in bacterial composition may occur concomitantly with the shift of species composition in plant communities.