Microbial diversity response in thallium polluted riverbank soils of the Lanmuchang

Abstract

Thallium (Tl) is a toxic element, but little is known about microbial communities’ response to TI mobilization and sequestration. Here, we characterize the microbial communities and their feedbacks to Tl-pollution in riverbank soils to understand the distribution of microbial metal tolerance. These soils have been affected by pollution sourced from a Tl-rich mineralized area in Lanmuchang, Guizhou, China. In all studied soil samples, Proteobacteria, Acidobacteria, and Actinobacteria were revealed relatively in higher abundance at the phylum level. The results indicated that a number of microbial communities including Gemmatimonadetes, and Actinobacteria were correlated with total Tl, suggesting potential roles of these microbes to Tl tolerance. The patterns of phylogenetic beta-diversity in studied samples showed a high diversity of the microbial community in soils with high Tl concentrations. Sequence analysis of microbial community indicated that most of the environmental parameters in soils were associated with the major phylogenetic groups such as Gemmobacteria, Bryobacteria, Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Firmicutes, and Rhodobacteria. Some species of microbes, Nocardioides (genus), Actinomycetales (Order), Ralstonia (phyla) and Sphingomonas (genus) might are tolerant of Tl. These results provide direction to the microbial communities in the presence of elevated Tl concentration in Lanmuchang and shed light on bioremediation of Tl polluted locations.