Key Laboratory of Ministry of Education on Pollution Control and Ecosystem Restoration in Industry Clusters, School of Environment and Energy, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510006, PR China.
Department of Resources and Information, Zhejiang Forestry Survey and Planning Company Limited, Hangzhou, 310016, PR China.
Ecotoxicol Environ Saf. 2020 Jun 1;195:110521. doi: 10.1016/j.ecoenv.2020.110521. Epub 2020 Mar 26.
Recent studies of microplastic have focused on aquatic environment, but its impacts on soil ecosystems were poorly understood, particularly on bacterial communities. In this study, the bacterial taxon and functional composition of soil microplastic-attached communities at Guiyu, a notorious e-waste dismantling area in Guangdong Province, China, were investigated by means of high-throughput sequencing. The results revealed that fundamental difference in bacterial communities existed among microplastics selected from three plots with different dismantling methods and their surroundings, suggesting that microplastic surface created a new ecological niche in soil environment, and the bacteria adapted well to the surface-related lifestyle. The formation of microplastic-attached bacteria depended not only on various dismantled plastic materials, but also on disassembly methods that caused different soil physicochemical characters which might also influence the bacterial communities. As the hydrocarbon degraders, the family Hyphomonadaceae were also found on soil microplastic, further confirming that microorganisms played a role in biodegrading microplastic in e-waste zone. The analysis of functional profiles speculated that microplastic-attached bacteria had the potential to degrade pollutants. This study provides a new perspective for exploring microplastic-associated bacteria and increasing our understanding of microplastic pollution in terrestrial ecosystems.
最近的微塑料研究主要集中在水生环境，但对其对土壤生态系统的影响了解甚少，特别是对细菌群落的影响。在这项研究中，通过高通量测序研究了中国广东省贵屿这个著名的电子废物拆解区三个不同拆解方法的地块及其周围土壤中微塑料附着群落的细菌分类和功能组成。结果表明，来自三个不同拆解方法地块及其周围土壤的微塑料之间的细菌群落存在显著差异，这表明微塑料表面在土壤环境中创造了一个新的生态位，并且细菌很好地适应了表面相关的生活方式。微塑料附着细菌的形成不仅取决于各种拆解的塑料材料，还取决于拆解方法，这些方法导致了不同的土壤理化性质，这也可能影响细菌群落。作为碳氢化合物降解菌的噬氢菌科也在土壤微塑料上被发现，进一步证实了微生物在电子废物区生物降解微塑料中发挥了作用。功能谱的分析推测，微塑料附着细菌具有降解污染物的潜力。本研究为探索微塑料相关细菌提供了新的视角，提高了我们对陆地生态系统中微塑料污染的认识。
