title: Abundance, composition and activity of denitrifier communities in metal polluted paddy soils.
abstract: Denitrification is one of the most important soil microbial processes leading to the production of nitrous oxide (N2O). The potential changes with metal pollution in soil microbial community for N2O production and reduction are not well addressed. In this study, topsoil samples were collected both from polluted and non-polluted rice paddy fields and denitrifier communities were characterized with molecular fingerprinting procedures. All the retrieved nirK sequences could be grouped into neither α- nor β- proteobacteria, while most of the nosZ sequences were affiliated with α-proteobacteria. The abundances of the nirK and nosZ genes were reduced significantly in the two polluted soils. Thus, metal pollution markedly affected composition of both nirK and nosZ denitrifiers. While the total denitrifying activity and N2O production rate were both reduced under heavy metal pollution of the two sites, the N2O reduction rate showed no significant change. These findings suggest that N2O production activity could be sensitive to heavy metal pollution, which could potentially lead to a decrease in N2O emission in polluted paddies. Therefore, metal pollution could have potential impacts on soil N transformation and thus on N2O emission from paddy soils.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Resource, Ecosystem and Environment of Agriculture, Nanjing Agricultural University, 1 Weigang, Nanjing 210095, China.|Department of Bioengineering, College of Life Sciences, Huaibei Normal University, 235000, Huaibei, Anhui Province, China.
authors.forename: Yuan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Institute of Resource, Ecosystem and Environment of Agriculture, Nanjing Agricultural University, 1 Weigang, Nanjing 210095, China.|College of Resource and Environment Sciences, Henan Institute of Science and Technology, Xinxiang City, Henan 453003, China.
authors.forename: Yongzhuo
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Institute of Resource, Ecosystem and Environment of Agriculture, Nanjing Agricultural University, 1 Weigang, Nanjing 210095, China.
authors.forename: Huimin
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Institute of Resource, Ecosystem and Environment of Agriculture, Nanjing Agricultural University, 1 Weigang, Nanjing 210095, China.
authors.forename: Lianqing
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Institute of Resource, Ecosystem and Environment of Agriculture, Nanjing Agricultural University, 1 Weigang, Nanjing 210095, China.
authors.forename: Jinwei
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.affiliation: Institute of Resource, Ecosystem and Environment of Agriculture, Nanjing Agricultural University, 1 Weigang, Nanjing 210095, China.
authors.forename: Xuhui
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Institute of Resource, Ecosystem and Environment of Agriculture, Nanjing Agricultural University, 1 Weigang, Nanjing 210095, China.
authors.forename: Jufeng
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.affiliation: Institute of Resource, Ecosystem and Environment of Agriculture, Nanjing Agricultural University, 1 Weigang, Nanjing 210095, China.
authors.forename: Genxing
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Pan
mesh_terms: D002681:China; D058440:Denitrification; D054892:Metagenome; D056186:Metagenomics / Q000379:methods; D019216:Metals, Heavy / Q000737:chemistry*; D064307:Microbiota; D012275:Oryza; D012987:Soil / Q000737:chemistry*; D012988:Soil Microbiology; D012989:Soil Pollutants / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D019216:Metals, Heavy; D012987:Soil; D012989:Soil Pollutants