The influences of thorny bamboo growth on the bacterial community in badland soils of southwestern Taiwan

The badland soils originated from mudstone in southwestern Taiwan are inhospitable for plant growth because of their high‐salinity and poor physicochemical properties. Thorny bamboo is one of the few plants that can survive in these soils. To investigate the responses of the soil bacterial communities to plant cover, bare soils and soils from thorny bamboo plantations were analyzed with the barcoded pyrosequencing technique. Actinobacteria and Proteobacteria predominated in the bare soil communities, but Acidobacteria, Actinobacteria, and Proteobacteria were the most abundant groups in the thorny bamboo soils. Environmental stress may have selected for Actinobacteria in the bare community. Canonical correspondence analysis of the distributions of abundant operational taxonomic units also revealed consistent differences between the communities in the bamboo and bare soils. The bacterial diversity in the bamboo soils was also higher than that in the bare soils. The soluble organic carbon and nitrogen in bamboo soils were significantly higher, but electrical conductivity was lower than that in the bare soils. These soil properties, as well as soil pH, were related to the structure and diversity of the bacterial communities. Statistical analyses also indicated that these factors affected the distribution of Acidobacteria, Actinobacteria, Alphaproteobacteria, and Gammaproteobacteria. Analysis of thiocyanate oxidation activity revealed higher activity in the bare than in the bamboo soils, further suggesting differences in structure and metabolic activity between bamboo and bare soil microbial communities. Apparently, growth of thorny bamboo in the badland soil changed soil properties, which in turn directly and/or indirectly affected soil bacterial structure and diversity.