3.1.1 Variation in the community structures of prokaryotes and
fungi
The microbial diversities of soils with different water level
in short- and long-term drainage
sites were characterized through partial 16S rRNA and ITS2 region gene
sequencing. A total of 1,266,722 and 1,298,041 highquality sequences
were analyzed for prokaryote and
fungi, respectively. The
prokaryotic
and fungal community structures of different treatments were evaluated
according to β-diversity using NMDS analysis and PERMANOVA test (Figure
2a and 2b). We found that water table and drainage age have significant
effects on prokaryotic structure (PERMANOVA, p < 0.001
and p = 0.008) and fungal (PERMANOVA, p < 0.001
and p = 0.002) communities in Zoige peatlands. Additionally, both
the prokaryotic and fungal
communities of low-water table treatments (LWT: L2 and S2) was
significantly different from that in
intermediate water table
treatments (IWT: L10 and S10) and high water table treatments (HWT: L50
and S50) (Figure 2a and 2b,
PERMANOVA, p <
0.001 for both), but the difference of prokaryotic and fungal
communities between IWT and HWT were also significant (p = 0.006
and p = 0.008, respectively). The differences caused by water
table were significantly greater than those associated with drainage age
(Figure 2a and 2b), indicating that the influence of water table on
microbial community structures was greater than that of drainage age.