Abstract
Purpose
The construction of Technosols is an emergent technology based on the assemblage of technogenic materials for ecological reclamation of polluted land and waste recycling. Although this technology is in expansion, knowledge about the microbial communities in Technosols is limited, despite their central role in ecosystem functioning. In this 2-year study, the diversity and the abundance of total and functional microbial communities were characterized in two types of Technosols constructed to reclaim contaminated sites.
Materials and methods
The structure of the microbial community was analyzed by automated ribosomal intergenic spacer analysis fingerprinting in both types of Technosols, and the taxonomic diversity was further assessed by 16S rRNA clone library sequencing. Real-time PCR was used to quantify the abundance of the total bacterial and crenarchaeal community and of the functional guilds involved in N-cycling.
Results and discussion
16S rRNA sequencing showed that Proteobacteria was the main phylum in the Technosols (50–80 %). The other significant phyla identified were Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes, Choloroflexi, and Actinobacteria. Real-time PCR quantification of the abundance of ammonia oxidizers, nitrate reducing, and denitrifying microbial communities involved in nitrogen cycling revealed that bacterial ammonia oxidizers were more abundant than crenarchaeal ammonia oxidizers. A high spatial variability of the microbial community, which decreased with time, was also observed.
Conclusions
At the phyla and class levels, the composition of the microbial community in constructed Technosols was similar to “natural” soils. Both the total bacteria and microbial guilds involved in N-cycling were abundant, but in contrast to most natural soils, bacteria and not crenarchaea were the numerically dominant ammonia oxidizers in both types of Technosols. The decrease with time of the variability in microbial community structure support early pedogenic evolution of recently constructed Technosols.
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Acknowledgments
The PhD work of Farhan Hafeez was funded by the Higher Education Commission (Pakistan) and supported by the Doctoral School E2S of the University of Burgundy (France). This work was part of the “Biotechnosol program” (contracts no. S.6-0006653 with INPL and S.6-0006654 with INRA) coordinated by Dr J Cortet and carried out as part of the Gessol program “Fonctions environnementales des sols et gestion du patrimoine sol” funded by the French Ministry of Ecology in cooperation with the ADEME. We should also like to thank the Valterra Company (Jean-Christophe RENAT and Sophie GUIMONT) for the soil construction and the technical staff of the Laboratoire Sols et Environnement, including Jean-Claude Bégin, Adeline Bouchard, Stéphane Colin, Romain Goudon, and Alain Rakoto, as well as the GISFI, particularly Noele Raoult, Cindy Messana, and Lucas Charrois, for technical assistance and management of field plots.
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Hafeez, F., Martin-Laurent, F., Béguet, J. et al. Taxonomic and functional characterization of microbial communities in Technosols constructed for remediation of a contaminated industrial wasteland. J Soils Sediments 12, 1396–1406 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-012-0563-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-012-0563-4