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Effects of environmentally relevant concentrations of oxytetracycline and sulfadiazine on the bacterial communities, antibiotic resistance genes, and functional genes are different between maize rhizosphere and bulk soil

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Abstract

Antibiotic contamination in soil has become a major concern worldwide. At present, it is not clear how two co-existed antibiotics with environmentally relevant concentrations would affect soil bacterial community structure, the abundances of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) and functional genes, and whether the effects of antibiotics would differ between rhizosphere and bulk soil. We conducted a greenhouse pot experiment to grow maize in a loess soil treated with oxytetracycline (OTC) or sulfadiazine (SDZ) or both at an environmentally relevant concentration (1 mg kg−1) to investigate the effects of OTC and SDZ on the rhizosphere and bulk soil bacterial communities, abundances of ARGs and carbon (C)-, nitrogen (N)-, and phosphorus (P)-cycling functional genes, and on plant growth and plant N and P nutrition. The results show that the effects of environmentally relevant concentrations of OTC and SDZ on bacterial communities and abundances of ARGs and functional genes differ between maize rhizosphere and bulk soil. The effects of two antibiotics resulted in a higher absolute abundances of accA, tet(34), tnpA-04, and sul2 in the rhizosphere soil than in the bulk soil and different bacterial community compositions and biomarkers in the rhizosphere soil and the bulk soil. However, OTC had a stronger inhibitory effect on the abundances of a few functional genes in the bulk soil than SDZ did, and their combination had no synergistic effect on plant growth, ARGs, and functional genes. The role of co-existed OTC and SDZ decreased shoot height and increased root N concentration. The results demonstrate that environmentally relevant concentrations of antibiotics shift soil microbial community structure, increase the abundances of ARGs, and reduce the abundances of functional genes. Furthermore, soil contamination with antibiotics can diminish agricultural production via phytotoxic effects on crops, and combined effects of antibiotics on plant growth and nutrient uptake should be considered.

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Data availability

Raw sequencing reads that support the findings of this study have been deposited in NCBI Sequence Read Archive with the accession codes PRJNA879125. The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This work was financially supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2021YFD1900700).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Soil Erosion and Dryland Farming on the Loess Plateau/College of Natural Resources and Environment, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, 712100, Shaanxi, China

    Zekun Zhang, Le Zhao, Jie Yang & Honghua He

  2. The UWA Institute of Agriculture, The University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, 6009, Australia

    Jiayin Pang

  3. School of Agriculture and Environment, The University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, 6009, Australia

    Jiayin Pang & Hans Lambers

  4. School of Biological Sciences, The University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, 6009, Australia

    Hans Lambers & Honghua He

  5. Department of Plant Nutrition, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, China

    Hans Lambers

  6. Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, 712100, Shaanxi, China

    Honghua He

  7. Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Yangling, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Ministry of Water Resources, Yangling, 712100, Shaanxi, China

    Honghua He

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  1. Zekun Zhang
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Contributions

Zekun Zhang: investigation, formal analysis, visualization, writing—original draft. Le Zhao: investigation. Jie Yang: investigation. Jiayin Pang: writing—review and editing. Hans Lambers: writing—review and editing. Honghua He: funding acquisition, conceptualization, methodology, writing—review and editing.

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Zhang, ., Zhao, L., Yang, J. et al. Effects of environmentally relevant concentrations of oxytetracycline and sulfadiazine on the bacterial communities, antibiotic resistance genes, and functional genes are different between maize rhizosphere and bulk soil. Environ Sci Pollut Res 31, 22663–22678 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-024-32578-6

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