Dynamic variation of bacterial community assemblage and functional profiles during rice straw degradation

The variations of bacterial community greatly resulted from the changes of “common species” and the contribution of niche process in structuring bacterial community increased during the decomposition. The relative abundance of the functional bacterial agents involved in straw decomposition was low in the whole bacterial community, and only a few of them were associated with other species, indicating that the rare species may greatly determine the functional profiles involved in straw decomposition and most of the functional agents were self-existent.