Metagenomic profile of the taxonomic classification and functional diversity of soil bacterial population in the Veerakkal forest area, Western Ghats, India

Abstract

The study aimed to assess the whole bacterial population and functions of two different soils (PP and TA) through the next-generation sequencing (NGS) method in the Veerakkal forest area, Western Ghats, Tamil Nadu, India. The forest soil is slightly acidic in nature and also rich in soil organic matter. The bacterial sequence reads under soil is classified taxonomically into 14 bacterial and 2 archaeal phyla, 45 classes, 88 orders, 119 families, and 146 genera. Acidobacteria is found to be the most populated phyla accounting for 25% population in PP soil, whereas 35% of Proteobacteria is the most abundant phyla in TA soil. The PP soil has more OTUs and a higher Shannon index than the TA soil which indicates a diversity gradient of soil bacteria restricted in the study site. Using PICRUSt functional analysis, the KEGG function of level I is discovered that Metabolism has the largest amount of genomic sequences involved (PP – 56%, TA – 54%), and KEGG level II identifies a greater proportion of the community involved in Amino acid metabolism (PP and TA – 14%) followed by Carbohydrate metabolism (PP and TA – 11%), Membrane transport (PP and TA – 10%) and Energy metabolism (PP and TA – 8%), all of these are most frequent categories in the study site. The presence of carbohydrate metabolism at above 11% has confirmed the study samples for bacterial potential towards cellulolytic activity in the soil environment. Further, this study suggests that the revealed bacterial isolates have the potential in recycling agro by-products and their utilization in industrial applications.