Analysis of unculturable bacterial communities in tea orchard soils based on nested PCR-DGGE

The bacterial communities in the soils from tea orchards and their adjacent wasteland in Anhui Province, China were analysed by nested PCR-DGGE technique combined with sequencing. DGGE profiles revealed that the DGGE patterns of different soils were similar to each other and the most intensely bands appeared in all lanes. The bacterial genetic diversity index of tea orchard soils was lower than that of wasteland. For the tea orchard soils, Shannon’s diversity index decreased in the order: 45-year-old tea orchard >25-year-old tea orchard >7-year-old tea orchard >70-year-old tea orchard. The analysis of 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that the fragments belong to Proteobacteria, Acidobacteria, TM7, Cyanobacteria and Firmicutes. A comprehensive analysis of the bacterial community structure in the tea orchard soils indicated the bacterial community was dominantly composed of Acidobacteria, followed by Proteobacteria (Gamma and Alpha), Firmicutes, Cyanobacteria and candidate division TM7. The RDA combined with UPGMA clustering analysis showed that the more similar the environmental variables were, the more similar the bacterial community structures in tea orchard soils were.