Different Decaying Wood Effects on Bacterial Diversity: Insights from Molecular Methods

Decaying wood is a novel key factor required for biodiversity and function of a forest, as it provides a good account of substrate and habitats for various organisms. Herein, the bacterial diversity in decaying wood of Betula platyphylla was discussed through high throughput sequencing. Our results showed that most of the obtained sequences belonged to the phyla Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes , Actinobacteria, Acidobacteria and Verrucomicrobia. Bacterial community compositions in samples with higher moisture content were obviously different than that with lower content, which could be reflected by richness estimators, diversity indices, and cluster and heatmap analysis. All three networks were non-random and possessed topological features of complex systems such as small-world and modularity features. However, these networks exhibited distinct topological features, indicating the potential ability of extensive cooperative and competitive interactions in the decayed wood microenvironments. Redundant analysis showed that most bacterial phyla were mainly distributed in higher-moisture trunks. The obtained data will increase the knowledge of the complex bacterial diversity associated with dead wood, and lay a foundation for the bioconversion technology of plant cell walls using bacteria.