Occurrence of heavy metals, antibiotics, and antibiotic resistance genes in different kinds of land-applied manure in China

Various pollutants remaining in the livestock and poultry manures pose potential threat to the soil ecosystem during land application, whose impact should be appreciated. The occurrence of heavy metals, antibiotics, and antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in swine manure (SM), chicken manure (CM), and the SM organic fertilizer (OF) were investigated. The order of total concentrations of antibiotics detected in manures was as follows: SM > CM > OF. The amount of ciprofloxacin (CIP) in SM reached up to 6.61 mg/kg, which only occupied 1% of the antibiotic concentration reported in the past years. The total concentration of thirteen ARGs in CM ranked first, reaching 7.35 x 10(11) copies/g, among which the strB gene was detected with the highest concentration. It was worth noting that the qnr ARGs were persistent in OF with the absence of corresponding antibiotics, indicating ARGs were harder to remove than antibiotics during manure composting. Zn and Cu (46.5-843 mg/kg) were obviously higher than other seven heavy metals, and significantly correlated with most ARGs (p < 0.01). This study provided the basic data of the pollution in animal manures that will be land-applied, illuminating the original source of potential risk in soil ecosystem.

Automated summary

This study investigated the presence of antibiotics and antibiotic resistance genes in swine manure, chicken manure, and organic fertilizer, revealing that antibiotics concentration was highest in swine manure, while ARGs concentration was highest in chicken manure. The findings suggest that ARGs are harder to remove than antibiotics in organic fertilizer, and that Zinc and Copper are significantly correlated with most ARGs.