Composition and functional genes analysis of bacterial communities from urban parks of Shanghai, China and their role in ecosystem functionality

Urban park soil plays a vital part in urban ecosystems, which harbor a considerable microbial diversity. Those microbes regulate soil fertility, plant health, and biogeochemical cycling. The existing studies have hardly focused on microbial diversity from urban parks, especially from China. As Shanghai, the largest city of China has experienced extensive urbanization, the present study focused on bacterial community compositions and their functional genes collected from 24 urban parks soils to ensure soil health and microbial sustainability of major parks of this city. To elucidate the bacterial communities from all 24 urban parks, soils were analyzed by sequencing V3-V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene using Illumina MiSeq. At the taxonomic level, 12,67,055 16S rRNA gene sequences were secured from all the soil samples. Out of 43 classified phyla, all the urban park soils had higher relative abundances of Proteobacteria and Acidobacteria accounting for 33.01-45.49 and 18.7-30.12%, respectively. A total of 6909 bacterial functional genes showing high functional gene diversity for essential biogeochemical processes (including carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur cycles) exist in Shanghai urban parks that could be helpful in maintaining fertility of park soils and thus greenery of city. This is the first extensive report on soil microbial diversity from urban parks of China. Our results provide a foundation or a guideline to urban planners and to compare future research related to urban parks soil biodiversity and ecosystem function.