Long-term effects of environmentally relevant concentrations of silver nanoparticles on major soil bacterial phyla of a loamy soil
Background The growing production and use of engineered AgNP in industry and private households make increasing concentrations of AgNP in the environment unavoidable. Although we already know the harmful effects of AgNP on pivotal bacterial driven soil functions, information about the impact of silv...
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Veröffentlicht in: | Environmental sciences Europe 2018, Vol.30 (1), p.31-31, Article 31 |
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Sprache: | eng |
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Zusammenfassung: | Background
The growing production and use of engineered AgNP in industry and private households make increasing concentrations of AgNP in the environment unavoidable. Although we already know the harmful effects of AgNP on pivotal bacterial driven soil functions, information about the impact of silver nanoparticles (AgNP) on the soil bacterial community structure is rare. Hence, the aim of this study was to reveal the long-term effects of AgNP on major soil bacterial phyla in a loamy soil. The study was conducted as a laboratory incubation experiment over a period of 1 year using a loamy soil and AgNP concentrations ranging from 0.01 to 1 mg AgNP/kg soil. Effects were quantified using the taxon-specific 16S rRNA qPCR.
Results
The short-term exposure of AgNP at environmentally relevant concentration of 0.01 mg AgNP/kg caused significant positive effects on
Acidobacteria
(44.0%),
Actinobacteria
(21.1%) and
Bacteroidetes
(14.6%), whereas
beta
-
Proteobacteria
population was minimized by 14.2% relative to the control (
p
≤ 0.05). After 1 year of exposure to 0.01 mg AgNP/kg diminished
Acidobacteria
(
p
= 0.007),
Bacteroidetes
(
p
= 0.005) and
beta
-
Proteobacteria
(
p
= 0.000) by 14.5, 10.1 and 13.9%, respectively.
Actino
- and
alpha
-
Proteobacteria
were statistically unaffected by AgNP treatments after 1-year exposure. Furthermore, a statistically significant regression and correlation analysis between silver toxicity and exposure time confirmed loamy soils as a sink for silver nanoparticles and their concomitant silver ions.
Conclusions
Even very low concentrations of AgNP may cause disadvantages for the autotrophic ammonia oxidation (nitrification), the organic carbon transformation and the chitin degradation in soils by exerting harmful effects on the liable bacterial phyla. |
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ISSN: | 2190-4707 2190-4715 |
DOI: | 10.1186/s12302-018-0160-2 |