Variation of rhizosphere bacterial community diversity in the desert ephemeral plant Ferula sinkiangensis across environmental gradients

Ferula sinkiangensis (F. sinkiangensis) is a desert short-lived medicinal plant, and its number is rapidly decreasing. Rhizosphere microbial community plays an important role in plant growth and adaptability. However, F. sinkiangensis rhizosphere bacterial communities and the soil physicochemical factors that drive the bacterial community distribution are currently unclear. On this study, based on high-throughput sequencing, we explored the diversity, structure and composition of F. sinkiangensis rhizosphere bacterial communities at different slope positions and soil depths and their correlation with soil physicochemical properties. Our results revealed the heterogeneity and changed trend of F. sinkiangensis rhizosphere bacterial community diversity and abundance on slope position and soil depth and found Actinobacteria (25.5%), Acidobacteria (16.9%), Proteobacteria (16.6%), Gemmatimonadetes (11.5%) and Bacteroidetes (5.8%) were the dominant bacterial phyla in F. sinkiangensis rhizosphere soil. Among all soil physicochemical variables shown in this study, there was a strong positive correlation between phosphorus (AP) and the diversity of rhizosphere bacterial community in F. sinkiangensis. In addition, Soil physicochemical factors jointly explained 24.28% of variation in F. sinkiangensis rhizosphere bacterial community structure. Among them, pH largely explained the variation of F. sinkiangensis rhizosphere bacterial community structure (5.58%), followed by total salt (TS, 5.21%) and phosphorus (TP, 4.90%).