Latitudinal shifts in native and invasive plant rhizosphere microbial community based on 16S rRNA gene

In this study, to test the latitudinal shifts in soil microbial community, we collected rhizosphere soil samples from the invasive plant Alternanthera philoxeroides and its native congener A.sessilis across 21 to 36.8 north latitudes in China on the land. And along the latitudinal gradient, soil pH value increased for both species with latitudes, soil total nitrogen and carbon contents increased with latitudes only for the native plant, while soil total phosphorus not changed with latitudes for both species. We characterized soil microbial community composition by high-throughput sequencing. Soil Bacterial16S rRNA genes were amplified with the universal primers 515F and 909R. Then these genes were sequenced with Illumina Miseq system.