Soil microbial systems respond differentially to tetracycline, sulfamonomethoxine, and ciprofloxacin entering soil under pot experimental conditions alone and in combination

• DOI: 10.1007/s11356-014-2685-2
• Publication Date: 2014-03-04T03:01:36Z
• Authors: Junwei Ma; Hui Lin; Wanchun Sun; Qiang Wang; Qiaogang Yu; Yuhua Zhao; Jianrong Fu
• Keywords: 2. Zero hunger; China; Bacteria; Sulfamonomethoxine; Nitrogen Cycle; Tetracycline; Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction; 01 natural sciences; 6. Clean water; Anti-Bacterial Agents; Ciprofloxacin; Tandem Mass Spectrometry; Drug Resistance, Bacterial; Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid; Soil Microbiology; 0105 earth and related environmental sciences

This study investigated soil microbial responses to the application of tetracycline (TC), sulfamonomethoxine (SMM), and ciprofloxacin (CIP) alone and in combination in a soil culture pot experiment conducted at Hangzhou, China. Multiple approaches were applied for a better and complete depiction. Among the three antibiotics, SMM has a lowest dissipation and shows a most dramatic inhibition on microbial community and metabolism diversity. The combined application (AM) of SMM, CIP, and TC improved the dissipation of each antibiotic; similarly, SMM- and CIP-resistant bacteria showed larger populations in the AM than all single applications. Soils accumulated a large content of NO3-N at day 20 after multi-antibiotics perturbation. All antibiotics stimulated soil basal respirations and inhibited soil metabolism diversity, whereas the interruption exerted by SMM and AM lasted for a longer time. Six nitrogen-cycling genes including chiA, amoA, nifH, nirK, nirS, and narG were quantified and found to decrease owing to both single- and multi-antibiotics perturbation. Overall, AM was most interruptive for soils, followed by SMM perturbation, while other antibiotics could be less interruptive. These results provide systematic insights into how soil microbial systems would shift under each single- or multi-antibiotics perturbation.