Contamination of Paddy Soil by Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals Affects Soil Microbe Abundance and Diversity

Abstract

We describe the effect on the population of  Eubacteria and Archaea species of adding the endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) nonylphenol (NP) or dibutylphthalate (DBP) to a typical paddy soil. Fluorescence in-situ hybridization was used to discriminate between the two phyla, and denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) of an amplified fragment of the 16S rRNA locus was used to profile the species present. The population of both Eubacteria and Archaea species was reduced by the presence of NP or DBP, and the deleterious effect was greater for the Eubacteria. The DGGE profiles were used to assess the species diversity in the polluted and non-polluted soil samples. This showed that DBP was less damaging than NP₅₀. It was clear that EDCs can significantly affect paddy soil microbial diversity, both with respect to population size and species representation.

Keywords:

• Endocrine-disrupting chemicals
• nonylphenol
• dibutyl phthalate
• soil bacteria

Acknowledgement

This project was partially supported by Central Foundation of Agricultural Science and Technology Production (2010E00079) and Key Scientific Research Base of Guangdong Province (2009A060800026). We would like to thank Ruiping Jiang and Ping Li for their assistance with field sampling and chemical analysis.