Dynamic Response of Soil Enzymes and Microbial Diversity to Continuous Application of Atrazine in Black Soil of a Cornfield without Rotation in Northeast China

Abstract

Atrazine has been extensively used in China’s agricultural production for a long time and the potential risks to the environment have received widespread attention. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of the continuous application of atrazine on soil herbicide residues, soil enzyme activity, and microbial community structure, as well as to provide a theoretical reference for the appropriate application of atrazine and the improvement of soil. Previous studies have focused on the effects of atrazine on soil microorganisms, but the experiments used higher doses than recommended. To reveal the actual effects of atrazine on soil microorganisms, the recommended dose of atrazine was used for 0, 1, and 2 years. We studied atrazine residues and enzyme activity in the soil, and phospholipid fatty acids (PLFA) were measured to study the structure of the soil microbiome. The results show that the rate of atrazine degradation occurred rapidly after the initial administration, and with the increase in continuous administration, its half-life decreased from 24.6 d in the first year to 14.1 d in the second year. The application of atrazine significantly affected soil urease activity and cellulase activity, but it had no significant effect on saccharase activity. The continuous application of atrazine had a significant effect on the biomass of cultured bacteria in soil, but not on the biomass of culturable fungi and actinomycetes in the soil. Furthermore, the results of PLFA analysis show that the application of atrazine had a significant effect on the microbial structure of the soil. These results indicate that the significant increase in the degradation rate of atrazine during continuous application is related to the high adaptability of the soil microbiome.

Role of Soil Microbiota Enzymes in Soil Health and Activity Changes Depending on Climate Change and the Type of Soil Ecosystem

“…Atrazine application also had a significant impact on soil Ure and cellulase activity but had no effect on saccharase activity. With atrazine application, the levels of Ure and cellulase in the soil rapidly decreased, indicating an inhibitory effect on Ure [270]. These findings imply that atrazine can influence N conversion in the soil.…”

“…Specifically, the insecticide cypermethrin has been shown in multiple studies to increase soil bacterial populations and enhance cellulase activities [268,269]. An investigation explored the impact of the herbicide atrazine on soil enzyme activities and discovered its widespread use in Chinese agricultural production as well as the widespread environ-mental concerns associated with it [270]. Non-target soil microorganisms are frequently affected by atrazine, an endosynthetic herbicide used before and after selective seeding to inhibit the growth of the target plants [271,272].…”

Temporal and spatial changes in rhizosphere bacterial diversity of mountain Rhododendron mucronulatum

“…The INV was determined using a 3,5-dinitrosalicylic acid colorimetric assay ( Wang et al, 2022a ). Finally, the URE was determined via indophenol blue colorimetric method ( Yang et al, 2021 ).…”

Degradation of atrazine in river sediment by dielectric barrier discharge plasma (DBDP) combined with a persulfate (PS) oxidation system: response surface methodology, degradation mechanisms, and pathways

“…Atrazine (ATZ) is a persistent dryland broad-spectrum herbicide that effectively inhibits the photosynthesis of grasses (Vieira et al, 2021). In recent years, ATZ has been extensively used in agriculture, forestry, fruit cultivation and other economic cultivation areas (Gaffar et al, 2021;Yang et al, 2021;Rastegar-Moghaddam et al, 2018). ATZ enters river sediment from the water due to its lipophilic and hydrophobic characteristics, causing pollution to the river sediment as well as potential risks to humans (Liu et al, 2022a;Qu et al, 2018).…”