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Air pollution below WHO levels decreases by 40 % the links of terrestrial microbial networks

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Abstract

Air pollution has a deleterious impact on public health and the environment. There is few knowledge on the effect of air pollution on terrestrial microbial communities, despite the major role of microbes in ecosystems. Here, we designed an in situ trial ecosystem to assess the impact of moderate atmospheric pollution, below World Health Organization (WHO) thresholds, on an indigenous microbial communities, including bacteria, fungi, ciliates, algae, cyanobacteria, testate amoebae, rotifers and nematodes, extracted from terrestrial bryophytes. These micro-ecosystems were placed at a rural, an urban and an industrial site in France and were thus exposed to various levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), from 6.6–67.9 μg·m−3, and particulate matter, from 0.7–7.9 μg·m−3. Microbial analysis was performed by microscopy. We determined atmospheric temperature, relative humidity and particulate matter with diameter lower than 10 µm (PM10), Cu, Cr, Fe, Ni, Pb, Zn in PM10, and (NO2). Results show a significant impact of chronic moderate exposure to NO2 and copper Cu-associated particulate matter on the global microbial network complexity. This is evidenced by a loss of about 40 % of microbial co-occurrence links during incubation. Most lost microbial links are ecologically positive links. Moreover, most changes in community co-occurrence networks are related to testate amoebae, a major top predator of microbes. Overall, our findings demonstrate that air pollution can have strong deleterious effects on microbial interactions, even at levels below WHO thresholds.

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Acknowledgments

This research is a component of the µPOLAIR project, which focuses on Sphagnum peatlands to quantify the long-range deposition of atmospheric pollutants and evaluate their impact on the environment. The µPOLAIR project is supported by the PRIMEQUAL programme (French Ministry of the Environment and the Agence De l’Environnement et de la Maitrise de l’Energie; Grant Number 2010-Q.3-Chorus2100082984) and the city of Besançon (France). B.K. received a Ph.D. grant from the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research. The authors would like to thank the staff of the CEA of Saclay for their collaboration in analyses of the trace elements. The authors also would like to thank Lionel Ranjard for suggestions on the manuscript.

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. UMR 6249 Laboratoire Chrono-Environnement, CNRS, Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté, UFR Sciences et Techniques, 16 Route de Gray 25000, Besançon, France

      Battle Karimi, Caroline Meyer, Daniel Gilbert & Nadine Bernard

    2. UMR 1347 Agroécologie, INRA, 17 Rue Sully 21000, Dijon, France

      Battle Karimi

    3. Service du Patrimoine Naturel, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, 12 Rue Buffon, 75005, Paris, France

      Caroline Meyer

    4. Laboratoire TheMA, UMR 6049, CNRS, Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté, UFR Lettres SHS, Besançon, France

      Nadine Bernard

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    1. Battle Karimi
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    2. Caroline Meyer
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    3. Daniel Gilbert
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    4. Nadine Bernard
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    Correspondence to Battle Karimi.

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    Battle Karimi and Caroline Meyer have contributed equally to this work.

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    Karimi, B., Meyer, C., Gilbert, D. et al. Air pollution below WHO levels decreases by 40 % the links of terrestrial microbial networks. Environ Chem Lett 14, 467–475 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10311-016-0589-8

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