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Understanding the composition and spatial distribution patterns of microbial communities in plateau peatland soils is crucial for preserving the structural and functional stability of highland wetlands. We collected 50 soil samples from the core conservation area of Zoige peatland along horizontal and vertical distributions to analyze the soil bacterial and fungal diversity by using high-throughput sequencing technology, combined with Mantel tests and multiple regression on matrices (MRM) statistical methods, as well as the spatial distribution characteristics of community structure similarity at a local scale. The results showed that the dominant soil bacterial and fungal groups were Chloroflexi (accounting for 33.2% and 25.1% of the total bacterial community in horizontal and vertical directions, respectively) and Ascomycota (54.7% and 76.4%). The similarity of microbial community structure in both horizontal and vertical directions decreased with increasing spatial distance of the sampling points. The turnover rates of bacterial and fungal communities in the vertical direction were 8.8 and 8.6 times as those in the horizontal direction, respectively. Based on the relative abundance of the communities, we classified microbes into six groups. As the number of rare species in the community increased, the slope of community distance decay decreased. The conditionally rare or abundant taxa (CRAT) category group showed the most similar spatial distribution characteristics to the total microbial community. Mantel analysis indicated that soil organic carbon, total nitrogen, and available phosphorus were key factors driving the distribution of bacterial and fungal communities in the horizontal direction, while soil organic carbon, available carbon, pH, and soil bulk density were the main factors determining the vertical distribution. MRM analysis further showed that both soil physicochemical indicators and spatial distance significantly affected the assembly of microbial communities, where soil factors explained more about the vertical distribution of microbial communities than the horizontal distribution. The impact of soil factors on microbial community distribution was much greater than that of spatial factors through diffusion limitation. In summary, the microbial communities in the plateau peatland soils exhibited more pronounced vertical distribution differences and environmental response characteristics.

Gas chromatography was used to monitor the reductive dechlorination of trichloroethylene (TCE) by anaerobic enrichment cultures with benzoate as the sole carbon source. The 454 pyrosequencing technique was used to investigate the microbial community and the real-time quantitative PCR was used to quantify the gene copies of Dehalococcoides spp. (DHC). The results showed that TCE was dechlorinated to vinyl chloride along with the formation of methane in 94 days. The anaerobic enrichment cultures exhibited a high diversity, which were classified into 16 phyla, 33 classes, 52 orders, 88 families and 129 genera, while 51.2% of them belonged to unclassified group, which inferred that there were a large portion of bacteria with unknown functional in this system. Degradation of TCE was accomplished by reductive dechlorinating and other functional populations, and the DHC which carried tceA gene could be the dominant reductive dechlorinating populations in the system.

A trichloroethylene (TCE) dechlorinating enrichment (Dehalococcoides spp.), which was isolated from soil of chlorinated ethene contaminated site, was used to investigate whether nano-scale zero valent iron (NZVI) could serve as electron donor for this consortium via cathodic H2 production during anaerobic corrosion. The results show that in the presence of methanol serving as electron donor, dechlorinating culture of 25 fold dilution [(2.0 +/- 0.44) x 10(5) cell/mL] degraded 20 mg/L TCE completely in 96 h, which was accompanied by the production of 2.706 micromol ethene in 190 h. Methanol-free control caused partial degradation of TCE to primarily cis-DCE in 96 h, with only 0.159 micromol ethene produced in 190 h. This indicates bacteria cannot reduce TCE to ethene without electron donor. But when 4 g/L NZVI was added as sole electron donor, this dechlorinating culture degraded 20 mg/L TCE into ethene and vinyl chloride (VC) in 131 h at a speed higher than that by NZVI alone. Compared to 2.706 micromol ethene produced by Dehalococcoides spp. with methanol added as the electron donor, there was only 1.187 micromol ethene produced by bacteria with NZVI serving as the electron donor, which means NZVI has a potential toxicity on Dehalococcoides spp.. At the meantime, 0.109 micromol acetylene was produced in 190 h, which was relatively lower than 0.161 micromol produced by NZVI alone, indicating bacteria competed with NZVI under electron deficient condition. In conclusion, NZVI could serve as electron donor and support dechlorination activity for Dehalococcoides spp. which could enhance the application of NZVI and usage of dechlorinating culture as a polishing strategy in future ground water remediation.