Diversity of airborne bacterial community in spring in theWest Lake scenic areas of Hangzhou, China

The community composition of airborne bacteria was examined using high throughput sequencing at four selected sampling sites during spring in the West Lake scenic areas of Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China. The results showed that the dominant bacterial phyla were Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Firmicutes, and Bacteroidetes at different sampling sites, and the relative content of these four phyla at the sampling sites of melting snow at broken bridge(MSBB), orioles singing in the willow(OSW), precious stone hill floating in rosy clouds(PSHFRC), and three pools mirroring the moon(TPMM) was 88.31%, 86.03%, 85.06% and 89.28%, respectively. Furthermore, a difference in the dominant bacterial phylum was detected at different sampling sites, and Firmicutes accounted for 9.65% and 11.6%, and Bacteroidetes 6.86% and 5.55% at OSW and TPMM, respectively. At the MSBB and PSHFRC sampling sites, Bacteroidetes accounted for 7.31% and 7.86%, and Firmicutes 7.09% and 5.32%, respectively. Significant differences in the airborne bacterial composition at the genus level were determined at the four selected sampling sites, and the most dominant bacterial genera were Massilia(6.22%), Janibacter(6.45%), Sphingomonas(6.05%), and Methylobacterium(11.5%) at the sampling sites of MSBB, TPMM, OSW, and PSHFRC, respectively. Sphingomonas, Methylobacterium, Hymenobacter, and Deinococcus were the common airborne bacteria at different sampling sites, that accounted for more than 2% of genera identified. Moreover, a high species richness and low homogeneity of airborne bacteria was detected at the MSBB sampling site, while a low species richness and high homogeneity was found at the PSHFRC sampling site. In general, significant differences in bacterial composition in the atmosphere were found at different sampling sites in the West Lake scenic areas of Hangzhou, and their richness and homogeneity were also significantly different.