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Effects of different microplastic types on soil physicochemical properties, enzyme activities, and bacterial communities
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A 230-day experiment tested six types of microplastics in soil and found that each type differently altered soil moisture, chemistry, enzyme activity, and microbial communities. Biodegradable plastic (PHA) caused the most significant disruption to beneficial soil bacteria, which matters for human health because soil microbe changes can affect crop nutrition and food safety.
Global concern continues to mount regarding the accumulation of microplastics (MPs) in soil. However, little is known about how various types of MPs influence the properties of soil ecosystems. Here, we evaluated the effects of six different types of MPs, including low-density polyethylene (LDPE), polyamide (PA), polystyrene (PS), polyhydroxy-alkanoates (PHA), polybutadiene styrene (PBS), and polylactide (PLA), on soil physicochemical properties, enzyme activities, and microbial communities. At the end of a 230-day soil incubation, we observed significant changes in soil moisture content, soil organic carbon, pH, NH4+-N, NO3--N, and available phosphorus. The addition of MPs had a significant influence on the activities of soil β-glucosidase, acid phosphatase, urease, and fluorescein diacetate hydrolase, with effects varying with MP type. Results of 16S rRNA gene high throughput sequencing showed that MP exposure had little effect on soil microbial alpha diversity, but that PHA contamination significantly reduced ACE, Chao1, and Shannon index values. MP contamination also altered soil microbial community composition. In particular, the relative abundance of Firmicutes increased significantly while the relative abundance of Actinobacteriota, Proteobacteria (especially the nitrogen-fixing rhizobia), and Acidobacteriota decreased following exposure to PHA. Redundancy analysis showed that acid phosphatase and pH were the two main environmental factors affecting bacterial community structure at the phylum and order levels. Furthermore, Tax4Fun2 analysis found that MP treatment disrupted fundamental bacterial metabolic pathways. Our findings indicate that different types of MPs can affect soil fertility, bacterial community structure, and function in various ways, and highlight that biodegradable MPs may alter soil bacterial communities more than conventional MPs.
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