3.6 Genetic diversity
Pairwise distances calculated based on “K80” model among all ASVs
available in a certain genus were used to evaluate the genetic diversity
of microbial population in present study. The results showed that
genetic diversity differed within control and different radiation levels
for both bacterial and fungal genera. Significant differences were
observed in the genetic diversity of 51 bacterial genera and 29 fungal
genera (Fig. 5; Table S3 for all bacterial and fungal genera proceeded
to one-way ANOVA). Intriguingly, the average genetic distance among more
than half of the genera in both bacterial and fungal communities was
more in the radioactive environments than that in control (Fig. 5; Table
S3 for bacterial genera and Table S4 for fungal genera). Meanwhile, the
overall genetic diversity at genus level of both bacterial and fungi in
whole plant were higher in the radioactive environments than those in
control treatments tested with one-way ANOVA (Table S5).