Abstract:[Background] The natural forest dominated by Picea purpurea plays an important role in maintaining ecological security in the upstream of Taohe river. It is still unclear how altitude influences the bacterial diversity and nutrients in rhizosphere and non-rhizosphere soil of P. purpurea, and how the altitude, soil nutrients, and bacterial diversity interact with each other. [Objective] To explore the community structures of bacteria in rhizosphere and non-rhizosphere soil of P. purpurea and the influencing factors.[Methods] Illumina Miseq was employed for sequence analysis of the rhizosphere and non-rhizosphere bacteria in the natural P. purpurea forest at different elevations in the upper reaches of Taohe river. The changes of soil physical and chemical factors and bacterial diversity with altitude were analyzed. Correlation and redundancy analysis was performed to elucidate the effect of some environmental factors on bacterial community. [Results] The nutrients of rhizosphere and non-rhizosphere soil samples of P. purpurea increased first and then decreased with the rise of altitude. The intergroup difference was significant for rhizosphere soil nutrients (P<0.05) but insignificant for non-rhizosphere soil nutrients (P>0.05). The rhizosphere species diversity index (H), evenness index (E), richness index (Chao1/ACE), and number of operational taxonomic units (OTU) demonstrated a unimodal trend with the increase in altitude. The non-rhizosphere bacteria diversity showed a bimodal variation trend with the rise of elevation. Bacteria diversity was in close correlation with soil nutrients, particularly in positive correlation with organic matter, total nitrogen, and available nitrogen (P<0.05) but in negative correlation with pH and available phosphorus (P>0.05). The community structures of bacteria in the forest at different elevations were highly consistent. A total of 7 159 bacterial OTUs were identified from 30 samples, which belonged to 37 phyla. The dominant bacteria phyla were Actinobacteria, Proteobacteria, Acidobacteria, and Chloroflexi, respectively. The response of different bacteria phyla to soil nutrients was different, and organic matter, total nitrogen, and available nitrogen were in positive correlation with Proteobacteria (P<0.05). [Conclusion] Composition and diversity of rhizosphere and non-rhizosphere soil bacteria of P. purpurea are significantly influenced by soil physical and chemical factors. The driving effects of environmental factors such as altitude and hydrothermal conditions on plants and soil are important reasons for the stable bacterial community structure. This study is expected to help gain a clearer insight into the variation of soil bacteria diversity of P. purpurea and the driving mechanism, which is expected to provide a reference for natural forest restoration in the upstream of Taohe river.