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Effects of microplastics on soil carbon dioxide emissions and the microbial functional genes involved in organic carbon decomposition in agricultural soil
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Researchers studied how polyethylene microplastics in agricultural soil affect carbon dioxide emissions and the microbial genes responsible for breaking down organic matter. They found that aged microplastics boosted soil carbon dioxide output and shifted the abundance of genes involved in decomposing starch, cellulose, and other carbon compounds. The findings suggest that microplastic accumulation in farmland may alter soil carbon cycling in ways that could influence greenhouse gas emissions.
The accumulation of microplastics (MPs) in agricultural fields can not only disguise soil organic carbon (SOC) storage but also affect the production of carbon dioxide (CO) by microbial decomposition. However, little is known about the impact of this emerging pollutant on soil CO emissions and the functional genes related to SOC degradation. In the present study, a short-term (30-day) microcosm experiment was performed to investigate the effects of virgin and aged low-density polyethylene (LDPE) MPs on soil CO emissions. We also measured functional gene abundances related to starch (sga), hemicellulose (abfA, manB and xylA), cellulose (cex) and lignin (lig and mnp) degradation through a high-throughput quantitative-PCR-based chip. Compared with the soils without MPs, low doses (0.01% and 0.1%) of both virgin and aged MPs had negligible effects on SOC decomposition, whereas a high dose (1.0%) of these two MPs significantly (p < 0.05) accelerated the production of CO in soils by 15-17%, showing a dose-dependent effect. The presence of MPs did not significantly affect soil dissolved organic carbon or microbial biomass carbon. A higher metabolic quotient at 1.0% MP concentration indicated that the microbes were stressed and needed more substrates and energy during their metabolic process, which could likely explain the increase in CO emission induced by this dose of MPs. Exposure to virgin MPs significantly reduced the functional genes related to hemicellulose (abfA and manB) degradation, whereas increasing the aged MPs concentrations significantly decreased the abundances of functional genes encoding starch (sga), hemicellulose (abfA, manB and xylA), and cellulose (cex) hydrolysis. Overall, we conclude that the low dose (<0.1%) of MPs in the soils has a negligible effect on the production of CO, but this factor should be considered in evaluating the global C budget in future research as this contaminant reaches a certain threshold (1.0%).
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