Responses of enzymatic activity and microbial communities to biochar/compost amendment in sulfamethoxazole polluted wetland soil

Abstract

Biochar and compost, two common amendments, were rarely conducted to investigate their combined influence on enzymatic activities and microbial communities in organic-polluted wetlands. This article described the effects of biochar/compost on degradation efficiency of sulfamethoxazole (SMX) and ecosystem responses in polluted wetland soil during the whole remediation process. 1% biochar (SB1) increased degradation efficiency of SMX by 0.067% ascribed to the increase of dehydrogenase and urease. 5% biochar (SB5) decreased degradation efficiency by 0.206% due to the decrease of enzymes especially for dehydrogenase. 2% compost (SC2), 1% biochar & 2% compost (SBC3), both 10% compost (SC10) and 5% biochar & 10% compost (SBC15) enhanced degradation efficiency by 0.033%, 0.015% and 0.222%, respectively, due to the increase of enzymes and biomass. The degradation efficiency was positively related to biomass and enzymatic activities. High-throughput sequencing demonstrated that HCGs (SB5, SC10, SBC15) improved the bacterial diversities but reduced richness through introducing more exogenous predominance strains and annihilated several inferior strains, while LCGs (SB1, SC2, SBC3) exhibited lower diversities but higher richness through enhanced the RAs of autochthonal preponderant species and maintained some inferior species. Additionally, HCGs raised the RAs of amino and lipid metabolism gene but lowered those of carbohydrate compared with LCGs.

Keywords: Amendments; Bacterial community; Degradation; Enzymatic activity; Metabolism function.