Forty years old Terminalia arjuna forestation from reclaimed sodic soil reveals abundance plays a major role as compared with diversity of bacterial population. Terminalia arjuna

Afforestation enhances the soil bacterial abundance but does not influence their diversity as much. We studied bacterial composition of rhizospheric soil during reclamation of degraded sodic soil by forestation with Terminalia arjuna during 40 years. It was observed that during the course of soil reclamation soil bacterial diversity remained unaffected. However, the sway on bacterial abundance was simultaneous with the increase in soil fertility while decrease in pH and availability of sodic soil indicators. Phylum Proteobacteria followed by Acidobacteria were among the highest contributors for ecosystem functioning. Nevertheless, Cyanobacteria, Actinobacteria and Firmicutes phyla incurred most losses in their abundance. Our findings suggested that the diversity of bacterial communities in soil remain unchanged in nutrient affluent or poor condition. However, abundance of bacterial phyla changed in the soil. Our results indicated that the availability of bacterial population was subjected to favourable environment while their diversity remained indifferent. We propose that as compared with diversity, abundance of microbes gets influenced with the soil environment.