The effect of monoculture and rotation planting on soil bacterial community structure at different elevation in Hubei

Abstract Highland vegetables play an important role in meeting the demand for fresh vegetables in summer and also increasing the income of farmers in upland areas of China. With the large‐scale and intensive development of vegetable planting in upland areas, many of the farmers have used vegetable–maize rotation instead of the traditional maize monoculture pattern. The bacterial community and diversity under different planting patterns and elevations were investigated using next‐generation sequencing and Biolog Ecoplate. The average well colour development ( AWCD ) was greater at low elevation and under the vegetable–maize rotation. There were 15 classified bacterial genera related to the elevation and planting patterns. The relative abundance of Aquicella was significantly affected by elevation and WPS ‐1_genera_incertae_sedis by elevation and planting patterns ( p < .01). At the same time, the only genus that was significantly affected by planting patterns was Aquicella ( p < .05). Redundancy analysis ( RDA ) showed that soil pH and available N content were the main factors influencing the change in soil bacterial community structure in the different planting models and elevation, and the dominant species of soil bacteria were Streptophyta and Aridibacter .