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Understanding the composition and diversity of soil microorganisms that typically mediate the soil biogeochemical cycle is crucial for estimating greenhouse gas flux and mitigating global changes in plantation forests. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to investigate changes in diversity and relative abundance of bacteria and archaea with soil profiles and the potential factors influencing the vertical di ff erentiation of microbial communities in a poplar plantation. We investigated soil bacterial and archaeal community compositions and diversities by 16S rRNA gene Illumina MiSeq sequencing at di ff erent depths of a poplar plantation forest in Chenwei forest farm, Sihong County, Jiangsu, China. More than 882,422 quality- filtered 16S rRNA gene sequences were obtained from 15 samples, corresponding to 34 classified phyla and 68 known classes. Ten major bacterial phyla and two archaeal phyla were found. The diversity of bacterial and archaeal communities decreased with depth of the plantation soil. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) of relative abundance of microbial communities exhibited that Nitrospirae, Verrucomicrobia, Latescibacteria, GAL15, SBR1093, and Euryarchaeota had significant di ff erences at di ff erent depths. The transition zone of the community composition between the surface and subsurface occurred at 10- 20 cm. Overall, our findings highlighted the importance of depth with regard to the complexity and diversity of microbial community composition in plantation forest soils.