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. 2024 Jul 2;14(1):15114.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-64267-2.

Inhibition of microbially mediated total organic carbon decomposition in different types of cadmium contaminated soils with wheat straw addition

Chengjuan Li #  1 , Hui Wang #  1 , Yajun Yang  2 , Hexiang Liu  3 , Xianhui Fang  3 , Yaohui Zhang  3 , Jialong Lv  3
Affiliations

Inhibition of microbially mediated total organic carbon decomposition in different types of cadmium contaminated soils with wheat straw addition

Chengjuan Li et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Wheat straw returning is a common agronomic measure in the farmland. Understanding organic carbon transformation is of great significance for carbon budget under the premise of widespread distribution of cadmium (Cd) contaminated soils. An incubation experiment was conducted to assess the influence of Cd contamination on the decomposition and accumulation of total organic carbon (TOC) as well as the composition and abundance of bacterial communities in eight soil types with wheat straw addition. The results showed that inhibition of Cd contamination on microbially mediated organic carbon decomposition was affected by soil types. The lower cumulative C mineralization and higher TOC content could be observed in the acidic soils relative to that in the alkaline soils. The content of Cd in soil exhibits different effects on the inhibition in decomposition of TOC. The high dosage level of Cd had stronger inhibitory impact due to its high toxicity. The decomposition of TOC was restricted by a reduction in soil bacterial abundance and weakening of bacterial activities. Redundancy analysis (RDA) indicated that Proteobacteria and Gemmatimonadetes were abundant in alkaline Cd-contaminated soils with wheat straw addition, while Bacteroidetes dominated cumulative C mineralization in acidic Cd-contamination soils. Moreover, the abundance of predicted functional bacteria indicated that high-dose Cd-contamination and acid environment all inhibited the decomposition of TOC. The present study suggested that pH played an important role on carbon dynamics in the Cd-contaminated soils with wheat straw addition.

Keywords: Bacterial abundance; Cd-contaminated soils; Cumulative C mineralization; Soil organic carbon; Wheat straw.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Soil organic matter content after the incubation with different dosages of Cd-contamination and wheat straw addition. (CK: 0 mg kg−1 Cd-contaminated-soil with 5% WS addition; LW: 1 mg kg−1 Cd-contaminated-soil with 5% WS addition; MW: 5 mg kg−1 Cd contaminated-soil with 5% WS addition; HW: 10 mg kg−1 Cd contaminated-soil with 5% WS addition).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Soil respiration (A) and the percentage of soil respiration to soil organic carbon content (B) after the incubation with different dosages of Cd-contamination and wheat straw addition. (CK: 0 mg kg−1 Cd-contaminated soil with 5% WS addition; LW: 1 mg kg−1 Cd-contaminated soil with 5% WS addition; MW: 5 mg kg−1 Cd contaminated-soil with 5% WS addition HW: 10 mg kg−1 Cd contaminated-soil with 5% WS addition).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Soil bacterial 16S rRNA gene abundance (A) and structure (B) after the incubation with different dosages of Cd-contamination and wheat straw addition. (CK: 0 mg kg−1 Cd-contaminated soil with 5% WS addition; LW: 1 mg kg−1 Cd-contaminated soil with 5% WS addition; MW: 5 mg kg−1 Cd contaminated-soil with 5% WS addition HW: 10 mg kg−1 Cd contaminated-soil with 5% WS addition).
Figure 4
Figure 4
The abundance in the dominant carbon-relating phyla after the incubation. (CK: 0 mg kg−1 Cd-contaminated soil with 5% WS addition; LW: 1 mg kg−1 Cd-contaminated soil with 5% WS addition; MW: 5 mg kg−1 Cd contaminated-soil with 5% WS addition HW: 10 mg kg−1 Cd contaminated-soil with 5% WS addition).
Figure 5
Figure 5
The unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean of soil bacterial communities (A) and RDA analysis between soil respiration, soil organic carbon and the abundance of dominant carbon-relating bacteria in all soils (B,C), in acidic soils (D) and the alkaline soils (E) with different dosages of Cd-contamination and wheat straw addition.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Changes in the microbial functional profiles obtained by phylogenetic investigation of communities by reconstruction of unobserved states (PICRUSt). (A) Biochemical metabolic pathways; (B) level 2 KEGG function predictions in terms of the relative abundances for the functions related to metabolism. (CK: 0 mg kg−1 Cd-contaminated soil with 5% WS addition; LW: 1 mg kg−1 Cd-contaminated soil with 5% WS addition; MW: 5 mg kg−1 Cd contaminated-soil with 5% WS addition HW: 10 mg kg−1 Cd contaminated-soil with 5% WS addition).
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