Consistent responses of soil microbial taxonomic and functional attributes to mercury pollution across China.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The ecological consequences of mercury (Hg) pollution-one of the major pollutants worldwide-on microbial taxonomic and functional attributes remain poorly understood and largely unexplored. Using soils from two typical Hg-impacted regions across China, here, we evaluated the role of Hg pollution in regulating bacterial abundance, diversity, and co-occurrence network. We also investigated the associations between Hg contents and the relative abundance of microbial functional genes by analyzing the soil metagenomes from a subset of those sites.

Results

We found that soil Hg largely influenced the taxonomic and functional attributes of microbial communities in the two studied regions. In general, Hg pollution was negatively related to bacterial abundance, but positiv

SUBMITTER: Liu YR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6194565 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature