Exploring diversity of foliose lichen-associated bacterial communities by high throughput ultradeep Illumina sequencing of 16S rRNA hypervariable V3 and V6 region

In the present study used Illumina Sequencing (150*2) of 16S rRNA (V3 and V6 region) to delineate the bacterial communities associated with lichens. The principal coordinate analysis, Venn and bar chart showed obvious microbial changes between the different useful bacteria of lichens belong to Proteobacteria, Acidobacteria, Actinobacteria Gemmatimonadetes, Chloroflexi, Cyanobacteria and several other unclassified groups. Bacterial sequences obtained from five lichen species located on rock outcrops suggested that, each lichen species harbored a variable bacterial community and that all communities were dominated by Alphaproteobacteria. This is the first study in the lichens to delineate the bacterial diversity used the 16S rRNA hypervariable regions V3 and V6. These results confirm the presence of highly diversified bacterial communities existed within lichens and these bacteria may serve distinct functional roles within lichen symbioses.