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The elevational distribution of bacterial communities in the surface soil of natural mountain forests has been widely studied. However, it remains unknown if microbial communities in surface and sub-surface soils exhibit a similar distribution pattern with elevation. To do so, Illumina HiSeq sequencing was applied to study the alterations in soil bacterial communities of different soil layers, along an altitudinal gradient from 500 to 1100 m on Huangshan Mountain in Anhui Province, China. Our results revealed a significant higher diversity of the bacterial communities in surface soil layers than in subsurface layers. Adonis analysis showed that soil layer had a greater influence on the composition of the bacterial communities than the elevation. The distance-based multivariate linear model suggested that soil labile organic carbon and elevation were the main element influencing the bacterial community composition in …