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Ecological evaluation of polymetallic soil quality: the applicability of culture-dependent methods of bacterial communities studying

  • SUITMA 9: Urbanization — Challenges and Opportunities for Soil Functions and Ecosystem Services
  • Published:
Journal of Soils and Sediments Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

This work aimed to study the effect of long-term polymetallic contamination on the state and parameters of soil bacterial communities, including the abundance of different groups of culturable bacteria and the activity of nitrification.

Materials and methods

Monitoring plots were located in the dry lake and surrounding area, which had been formerly used for the discharge of industrial waste. The soils in the 16 plots were characterized by extremely high levels of heavy metal pollution. This study evaluated the main soil physicochemical properties by various methods, total metal contents by X-ray analysis, mobile metal content by atomic absorption spectrophotometry, the abundance of chosen groups of culturable bacteria by inoculation on solid media, and nitrification activity from ammonium and nitrite oxidation rates.

Results and discussion

High adaptation capacity of microbial communities to long-term pollution was revealed through marked lack of decrease in the abundance of some of the bacterial groups in soils with high contamination levels. Among the bacteria determined by the colony count method, copiotrophic and spore-forming bacteria were the least sensitive to contamination, and actinomycetes were the most sensitive. The high levels of soil pollution with heavy metals had pronounced adverse effects on nitrification activity. The decrease in activity was strongly correlated with pollutant concentrations. The oxidation of nitrite was shown to be more affected by pollution that the oxidation of ammonium.

Conclusions

Some groups and parameters of culturable microorganisms can be used for soil status estimation under pollution conditions even though they are only a small fraction of the microbial community. The most sensitive parameter was the nitrification rate, while the number of actinomycetes was found to be most promising parameter among the groups of bacteria determined by plate counts. The use of sensitive groups of culturable microorganisms for bioindication purposes is a method, which may provide a cheap and sufficiently reliable tool for large-scale soil monitoring studies.

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Acknowledgements

The work was supported in part by the Russian Science Foundation, project no. 16-14-10217.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Southern Federal University, Rostov-on-Don, Stachki Avenue, 194/1, Russia

    Andrey Gorovtsov, Tatiana M. Minkina, Inna V. Zamulina, Saglara S. Mandzhieva, Svetlana N. Sushkova & Vishnu Rajput

  2. NYC Urban Soils Institute, New York, NY, USA

    Tatiana Morin

Authors
  1. Andrey Gorovtsov
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  2. Tatiana M. Minkina
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  3. Tatiana Morin
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  4. Inna V. Zamulina
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  5. Saglara S. Mandzhieva
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  6. Svetlana N. Sushkova
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  7. Vishnu Rajput
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Correspondence to Andrey Gorovtsov.

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Responsible editor: Jizheng He

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Gorovtsov, A., Minkina, T.M., Morin, T. et al. Ecological evaluation of polymetallic soil quality: the applicability of culture-dependent methods of bacterial communities studying. J Soils Sediments 19, 3127–3138 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-018-2019-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-018-2019-y

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