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Abstract
In arid and semi-arid desert ecosystems, physical, chemical, and vegetative measures were used to prevent wind erosion. However, studies on the utilization of microbial resources for sand fixation are still limited. To fill this gap, a new strain of Bacillus tequilensis CGMCC 17603 with high productivity of exopolysaccharide (EPS) was isolated from biological soil crusts, and its high-density culture technology and sand-fixing ability were studied. The one-factor-at-a-time approach (OFAT) and Box–Behnken design of CGMCC 17603 showed that the optimum culture conditions were pH 8.5, temperature 31 °C, agitation speed 230 rpm, and inoculation quantity 3%, and the optimum medium was 27.25 g/L glucose, 15.90 g/L yeast extract, and 5.61 g/L MgSO4•7H2O. High-density culture showed that the biomass and EPS yield of CGMCC 17603 increased from 9.62 × 107 to 2.33 × 109 CFU/mL, and from 8.01 to 15.61 g/L, respectively. The field experiments showed that CGMCC 17603 could effectively improve the ability of sand fixation and wind prevention. These results indicated that B. tequilensis, first isolated from cyanobacterial crusts, can be considered as an ideal soil-fixing agent to combat desertification in arid and semi-arid areas.
Highlights
Desertification is a serious global environmental and ecological problem, affecting ~36 million km2 of the Earth’s terrestrial land surface and ~20% of the world’s population [1]
Biological soil crusts (BSCs) are assemblages of macroscopic and microscopic organisms that combine with fine soil particles, which have made a positive contribution to the reversion of wind-induced sand erosion [5,6,7,8]
Molecular identification showed that B6 and B. tequilensis 52-LR1-2 (GenBank accession number: MF077125.1) formed a clade with a bootstrap value of 99%, and B6 closely related to B. subtilis YH10-11, AU021, and ZHA9 (Figure 2)
Summary
Desertification is a serious global environmental and ecological problem, affecting ~36 million km of the Earth’s terrestrial land surface and ~20% of the world’s population [1]. The desertification mainly caused by wind erosion accounts for more than 70% (about 1.83 million km2), affecting millions of people in 13 provinces and causing direct economic losses of about 54.1 billion Yuan/year [2,3,4]. Biological soil crusts (BSCs) are assemblages of macroscopic (such as cyanobacteria, lichens, and mosses) and microscopic organisms (such as bacteria, fungi, and archaea) that combine with fine soil particles, which have made a positive contribution to the reversion of wind-induced sand erosion [5,6,7,8]. Cyanobacterial inoculation technology is widely accepted as one of the feasible methods to artificially accelerate the reversal of desertification [5,12,13,14]
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