Effects of Toxic metal contamination on soil microbial community composition and activity
The Savannah River Site (SRS) has faced environmental challenges related to coal ash disposal, which contains toxic heavy metals such as arsenic, lead, mercury, selenium, and cadmium. In this study, the effect of coal ash-related contamination on the taxonomic and functional structure of the microbial community was assessed using targeted metagenomic approaches. Specifically, we employed 16S rRNA gene sequencing (V4-V5 region) for bacteria