5 (Biometris, The Nerherlands). Results Geochemical properties in sampling sites Soil characteristics of these six sampling P505-15 price sites are summarized in Table 1. pH in all those sites was neutral or close to alkali, and they were rich in organic carbon (C) and nitrogen (N), ranging from 91.99 g/kg to 209.19 g/kg and 1.50 g/kg to 15.50 g/kg, respectively. It was noted that C/N ratios displayed a decreasing trend as the elevation increased. For example, sample SJY-GH with the lowest elevation (3400 m) had the highest value of C/N ratio, whereas

sample SJY-YS with the highest elevation (4813 m) had the lowest C/N ratio. In addition, sample SJY-GH had higher total C, N, P and K contents buy GF120918 than the other samples. Overview of functional gene diversity and structure of soil microbial

communities The examined microbial communities showed high diversity, as judged by the number of detected genes, overlapping genes between samples, unique genes and diversity indices (Table 2). The total number of detected genes ranged from 1,732 to 3,746 among the six study sites (Table 2). For instance, twice as many genes were detected in sample SJY-GH as in sample SJY-CD, SJY-ZD or SJY-YS. These samples had different community compositions, as shown by the unique and overlapped genes (Table 2). Sample SJY-GH and sample SJY-DR had the most overlapped genes (2029, 42.94%), while sample SJY-GH and sample SJY-YS had the fewest overlapped genes (1178, 27.22%). Simpson’s reciprocal diversity index (1/D) was the highest in sample SJY-GH

and the lowest many in sample SJY-CD (3716 and 1723, respectively). Similar results were obtained with Shannon-Weaver index (Table 2). Table 2 Total detected gene number, gene overlap, unique, diversity indices of soil sample a Unique and overlap genes SJY-GH SJY-DR SJY-QML SJY-CD SJY-ZD SJY-YS SJY-GH 1044(27.87%) 2029(42.94%) 1655(37.26%) 1264(30.00%) 1261(29.84%) 1178(27.22%) SJY-DR   617(20.51%) 1485(38.33%) 1171(32.81%) 1163(32.43%) 1107(30.24%) SJY-QML     403(17.14%) 1049(34.57%) 1062(35.05%) 973(31.01%) SJY-CD       242(13.97%) 916(35.82%) 840(31.67%) SJY-ZD         248(14.24%) 816(30.39%) SJY-YS           321(18.24%) Total no. of genes detected 3746 3008 2351 1732 1741 1760 Shannon weaver index 8.22 8.01 7.76 7.45 7.46 7.47 Simpson’s reciprocal diversity index (1/D) 3716 2988 2340 1723 1733 1752 a Values in parentheses are percentages. Italicized values indicate the number of overlapping genes between samples, boldface values indicate the number of unique genes in each sample. According to the phylogenetic analysis, the Proteobacteria group is the most dominant bacteria in all six samples, which account for over 56% (over 23% belong to α-proteobacteria, 13% belong to β-proteobacteria, 14% belong to γ-portecobacteria) among all the detected genes (Additional file 1: Table S1). The Actinobacteria (over 9.