Changes in soil microbial communities at Jinsha earthen site are associated with earthen site deterioration

BACKGROUND: Earthen sites are immobile cultural relics and an important part of cultural heritage with historical, artistic and scientific values. The deterioration of features in earthen sites result in permanent loss of cultural information, causing immeasurable damage to the study of history and culture. Most research on the deterioration of earthen sites has concentrated on physicochemical factors, and information on microbial communities in earthen sites and their relationship with the earthen site deterioration is scarce. We used high-throughput sequencing to analyze bacterial and fungal communities in soils from earthen walls with different degree of deterioration at Jinsha earthen site to characterize the microbial communities and their correlation with environmental factors, and to compare microbial community structures and the relative abundances of individual taxa associated with different degree of deterioration for identifying possible marker taxa. RESULTS: The relative abundances of Proteobacteria and Firmicutes were higher and that of Actinobacteria lower with higher degree of deterioration. At the genus level, the relative abundances of Rubrobacter were highest in all sample groups except in the most deteriorated samples where that of Bacteroides was highest. The relative abundance of the yeast genus Candida was highest in the severely deteriorated sample group. The bacterial phylum Bacteroidetes and genus Bacteroides, and fungal class Saccharomycetes that includes Candida sp. were specific for the most deteriorated samples. For both bacteria and fungi, the differences in community composition were associated with differences in EC, moisture, pH, and the concentrations of NH(4)(+), K(+), Mg(2+), Ca(2+) and SO(4)(2−). CONCLUSION: The microbial communities in soil with different degree of deterioration were distinctly different, and deterioration was accompanied with bigger changes in the bacterial than in the fungal community. In addition, the deteriorated soil contained higher concentrations of soluble salts. Potentially, the accumulation of Bacteroides and Candida plays an important role in the deterioration of earthen features. Further work is needed to conclude whether controlling the growth of the bacteria and fungi with high relative abundances in the deteriorated samples can be applied to alleviate deterioration.