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).