Journal
CHEMOSPHERE
Volume 120, Issue -, Pages 8-15Publisher
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2014.05.037
Keywords
Bioavailability; Heavy metals; Microbial activity; Microbial biomass; Soil health
Categories
Funding
- Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (FITOMINA project) [AGL2012-39715-C03-02]
- Basque Government (BERRILUR-3 project)
- Fundacion Candid de Iturriaga y Maria de Danobeitia
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Most frequently, soil metal pollution results from the occurrence of repeated single-metal and, above all, multi-metal pollution events, with concomitant adverse consequences for soil quality. Therefore, in this study, we evaluated the impact of repeated single-metal and multi-metal (Cd, Pb, Cu, Zn) pollution events on soil quality, as reflected by the values of a variety of soil microbial parameters with potential as bioindicators of soil functioning. Specifically, parameters of microbial activity (potentially mineralizable nitrogen, beta-glucosidase and acid phosphatase activity) and biomass (fungal and bacterial gene abundance by RT-qPCR) were determined, in the artificially metal-polluted soil samples, at regular intervals over a period of 26 weeks. Similarly, we studied the evolution over time of CaCl2-extractable metal fractions, in order to estimate metal bioavailability in soil. Different metals showed different values of bioavailability and relative bioavailability ([metal](bio)/[metal](tot)) in soil throughout the experiment, under both repeated single-metal and multi-metal pollution events. Both repeated Zn-pollution and multi-metal pollution events led to a significant reduction in the values of acid phosphatase activity, and bacterial and fungal gene abundance, reflecting the negative impact of these repeated events on soil microbial activity and biomass, and, hence, soil quality. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available