To study the effect of heavy metal pollution on microbial communities, microbial diversity and community structure of soils near Qingshuitang industrial district in Zhuzhou, China, were analyzed by Illumina high-throughput sequencing technology. In this study, the microbial diversity and community relative abundance decreased with increased heavy metal pollution level. Proteobacteria (49.56%) were the most abundant phylum in all samples, followed by Chloroflexi (13.07%) and Acidobacteria (8.77%). The microbial community structures of all samples were similar. The overlap of OTUs was 52.64%, and the structures of the abundant OTUs subcommunities were more similar than the rare OTUs community structures were. Heavy metals caused increases in Proteobacteria and Chloroflexi and decreases in Acidobacteria and Nitrospirae. According to Spearman's correlation, Proteobacteria was significantly negatively correlated with Cr, whereas Chloroflexi was positively correlated with Cr. Cd, Cu, Pb, and Zn were significantly negatively correlated with Nitrospirae. These results showed that heavy metal pollution is an important factor affecting the soil microbial structure in the soil of the Qingshuitang industrial district.
Keywords: Qingshuitang industrial district; heavy metal pollution; high-throughput sequencing; microbial community structure; microbial diversity; soils.