Bacteria, Fungi, and Enzymes in Soil Treated with Sulcotrione and Terbuthylazine

Abstract

Soil’s biological equilibrium, disturbed by the uncontrolled penetration of pesticides, can be restored by the activity of native microorganisms, which show abilities in neutralizing these xenobiotics. Therefore, this research is necessary in the search for new microorganisms used in the process of the bioremediation of contaminated soils. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of the herbicides, Sulcogan 300 SC, Tezosar 500 SC, and Sulcotrek 500 SC, applied to soil at the manufacturers’ recommended dosage as well as 10-fold higher, on the abundance of microorganisms, the diversity and structure of bacterial and fungal communities, the activity of soil enzymes, and the growth and development of Zea mays L. It was found that herbicides in contaminating amounts stimulated the proliferation of organotrophic bacteria and inhibited the growth of fungi. Organotrophic bacteria and actinobacteria were represented by K-strategies and fungi by r-strategies. Bacteria belonging to the phylum, Actinobacteriota, represented by the genus, Cellulosimicrobium, were most abundant in the soil, while among the fungi, it was the phylum, Ascomycota, represented by the genus, Humicola and Chaetomium. The herbicides decreased urease activity while increasing arylsulfatase and acid phosphatase activity. They had a positive effect on the growth and development of Zea mays L., as evidenced by an increase in the values of the plant tolerance index (TI) and the maize leaf greenness index (SPAD). The results indicate that soil microorganisms and enzymes are suitable indicators reflecting the quality of herbicide-treated soil.

Effect of Previous Crop on the Structure of Bacterial and Fungal Communities during the Growth of Vicia faba L. spp. minor

“…Bacterial sequence reads were performed using QIIME 2 software based on the Silva 138 sequence database, while QIIME software based on the UNITE v8 sequence database was used to read fungal sequences. The sequencing procedure and bioinformatic analysis are described in Baćmaga et al [37] and Wyszkowska et al [38]. The bacterial and fungal sequences are deposited in the NCBI GenBank under the following accession numbers: bacterial 16S rRNA (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/?term=OR652689:OR652778[accn]) (16 October 2023) and fungal ITS (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/?term=OR652779: OR653394[accn]) (16 October 2023).…”