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

Ferula 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, Ferula 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 Ferula sinkiangensis rhizosphere bacterial communities at different slope positions and soil depths and their correlation with soil physicochemical properties. Our results revealed the heterogeneity and variation trends of Ferula sinkiangensis rhizosphere bacterial community diversity and abundance on a fine spatial scale (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 Ferula 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 Ferula sinkiangensis. In addition, Soil physicochemical factors jointly explained 24.28% of variation in Ferula sinkiangensis rhizosphere bacterial community structure. Among them, pH largely explained the variation of Ferula sinkiangensis rhizosphere bacterial community structure (5.58%), followed by total salt (TS, 5.21%) and phosphorus (TP, 4.90%).