Abstract:To determine the effects of clubroot disease on microbial diversity of rhizosphere soils, the bacterial 16S rDNA region and fungal ITS region from the rhizosphere soils of clubroot-infected and healthy Chinese cabbage were sequenced and analyzed to evaluate the microbial community composition and structure. Moreover, we also measured the physiochemical properties of the two groups of soil samples, aiming to establish the relationship among clubroot occurrence, microbial community structures, and soil environmental factors. Soil pH and the contents of total phosphorus, total potassium, available nitrogen, and available phosphorus were significantly lower in the rhizosphere soil of clubroot-infected Chinese cabbage than those of healthy plants, whereas the exchangeable calcium content was increased in diseased soil. The occurrence of clubroot significantly reduced the richness and diversity of bacterial populations but had no significant effect on the fungal alpha-diversity in rhizosphere soils. The dominant bacterial phyla for the two groups of soil samples were Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Actinobacteria, Acidobacteria, and Chloroflexi, of which Bacteroidetes had a higher abundance in the rhizosphere soil of clubroot-infected Chinese cabbage than that of healthy plants (P<0.05), whereas Actinobacteria had a lower abundance (P<0.05). At the class level, Gammaproteobacteria, Bacteroidia, Alphaproteobacteria, Actinobacteria, and Acidobacteria were the predominant bacterial communities, and the relative abundance of Bacteroidia, Actinobacteria, Oxyphotobacteria were significantly different between the two blocks (P<0.05). The dominant fungal phyla were Ascomycota, Mortierellomycota, Basidiomycota, and Chytridiomycota, whereas Eurotiomycetes, Mortierellomycetes, Leotiomycetes, Sordariomycetes, and Dothideomycetes were the predominant classes, and the relative abundance of these dominant phyla and classes were significantly different between Group 1 and 2 (P<0.05). Principal coordinates analysis (PCoA) showed that clubroot played an important role on the structure change of the soil microbial community, and distance-based redundancy analyses (db-RDA) indicated that soil available phosphorus and exchangeable calcium were the principal factors that correlated with the microbial community structure of rhizosphere soil. This research revealed micro-ecological changes of the rhizosphere with the occurrence of clubroot disease and provided theoretical support for developing a comprehensive control method of clubroot disease.