Microbial Diversity and Community Structure in Agricultural Soils Suffering from 4-year Pb Contamination

Heavy metal pollution has become a widespread environmental problem due to rapid economic development. The phylogenetic diversity and structure of microbial communities in Pb-contaminated Lou soils were investigated using Illumina MiSeq sequencing of 16S rRNA genes. The presence of Pb2+ in soil showed weak impact on the diversity of soil bacteria community, but influenced the abundance of some genera of bacteria, as well as soil physicochemical properties. We found significant differences in the relative abundances of heavy metal resistant bacteria such as Bacillus, Streptococcus and Arthrobacter at the genus level. Available Pb (APb) and total Pb (TPb) negatively correlated with soil organic matter (SOM), but positively affected available phosphorus (AP). The abundance of main bacteria phyla was highly correlated with total Pb (TPb). The relative abundance of Gemmatimonadetes, Nitrospirae and Planctomycetes were negatively correlated with total Pb (TPb). Collectively, Pb influences both the microbial community composition and physicochemical properties of soil.The accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author