长江口潮滩沉积物古菌群落结构与多样性

High-throughput sequencing was used to investigate the archaeal community structure and diversity, and associated influencing factors in the intertidal sediments of the Yangtze Estuary. The results indicated that the OTUs and Shannon index of archaeal community in the intertidal sediments were 900~1417 and 7.02~8.02, respectively, which both decreased from low to high salinity sampling sites. The specific OTUs of archaeal community structure accounted for 24.2%~57.3% of total OTUs in each sampling site, and identical OTUs only occupied for 1.2%, indicating that archaeal community structure varied highly along the sampling sites. The archaeal community was dominated by the Euryarchaeota and Thaumarchaeota. The Bathyarchaeota contributed a great parts of archaeal community, accounting for 17.7%~25.9% of total community. The principal component and cluster analysis suggested that the archaeal community structure in sites LCG and DHNC was similar, and archaeal community structure in BLG showed a similarity with LHK, while archaeal community structure showed a great difference in XP compared to others sampling sites. Canonical correlation analysis suggested that distribution of archaeal community structure in the intertidal sediments was tightly correlated with the sediment salinity. These results indicated that archaeal community structure and diversity were highly variable in the intertidal sediments of the Yangtze Estuary. In addition, sediment salinity was the crucial factor affecting the variabilities in archaeal community structure and diversity in the Yangtze Estuary.