Author(s)

Xinru Wang

Corresponding Author

Xinru Wang

ABSTRACT

Soil acidification will promote the mobility of some toxic elements and decrease crop yield, resulting in economic loss and public health issues at the same time. Hence it has always been a problem to agriculturists. To solve it people have come up with all kinds of treatments such as lime, boron slurry, and some manure. Recently, the swine industry in China is facing massive closures due to the swine wastewater disposal crisis. Untreated swine wastewater would pollute the water body for it is high in bicarbonate and nutrient concentration that will cause algae bloom. Therein lies the reason why in pre-study we believe swine wastewater has the potential to remediate acid soil. Wastewater’s capabilities of lowering soil acidity and exchangeable aluminum, increasing soil fertility, and affecting deeper layer soil have been verified in pre-study. However, our understanding of whether wastewater affects microbial diversity in soils is very limited. Therefore, we use 16S rDNA analysis to do metagenomic analysis and compare microbial diversity and microbial community structure in soil samples with or without wastewater treatment. In the result we found that the abundance of acidophilic bacteria in soil has declined. The result also showed that wastewater has introduced digestive tract bacteria to the soil environment. In general, wastewater irrigation had no significant effect on soil microbial diversity but had some effect on microbial community structure. Further research is needed to explore the potential effects on soil environment, plants, or humans caused by this change.

KEYWORDS

16S rDNA, Metagenomic analysis, Acid Soil Remediation, Swine wastwater irrigation, Microorganism Diversity, Microbial Community