MICROBIAL COMMUNITY STRUCTURE AND DIVERSITY IN RHIZOSPHERE AND NON-RHIZOSPHERE SOILS OF TSUGA CHINENSIS AT DIFFERENT TREE AGES

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of tree age on the growth and development of rhizosphere and non-rhizosphere microbial community structure and diversity of Tsuga chinensis.The Illumina MiSeq high-throughput sequencing platform was employed to analyze the composition and diversity of bacterial and fungal communities in the rhizosphere and non-rhizosphere soils of mature and young trees in the Yuanbaoshan National Nature Reserve.The results revealed significant differences in microbial community structure under different tree ages and soil microenvironments.At the phylum level, the dominant bacterial phyla in both rhizosphere and non-rhizosphere soils of T. chinensis at different tree ages were Proteobacteria, Actinobacteriota, and Acidobacteriota.For fungi, the dominant phyla included Basidiomycota, Ascomycota, Mortierellomycota, unclassified_k__Fungi, and Rozellomycota.Genus-level analysis showed high similarity in the composition and abundance of bacterial communities between mature and young tree soils, regardless of rhizospheric influence.In contrast, fungal communities exhibited notable specificity.Archaeorhizomyces was identified as a dominant fungal genus unique to the nonrhizosphere soil of young T. chinensis, while Russula was dominant in the non-rhizosphere of mature trees and in both rhizosphere and non-rhizosphere soils of young trees.Alpha diversity analysis indicated that the diversity of bacterial and fungal communities in the rhizosphere of mature trees was generally higher than that of young trees, and the diversity in rhizosphere soils was higher than in non-rhizosphere soils.This study deepens the understanding of the interactions between T. chinensis and soil microorganisms and provides theoretical support for its resource conservation and scientific management.