ARGs distribution and high-risk ARGs identification based on continuous application of manure in purple soil

Abstract

Tetracyclines (TCs) are one of the most widely used antibiotics in livestock and poultry industry. Sichuan province and Chongqing city are the provinces and cities with the most concentrated purple soil distribution in China, as well as the largest livestock and poultry breeding scale. Purple soils with low organic carbon content and poor structure, and manure fertilizers were heavily applied to improve soil quality. However, the research on antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) dispersal in purple soils is limited. Overall, 234 ARGs subtypes belonging to 15 types were detected in all soils. Long-term application of livestock manures significantly changed the characteristics of ARGs, mobile genetic elements (MGEs), pathogen species and bacterial communities in the soil, and increased by 103.2 %, 13.1 %, 188.6 % and 43.7 % in chicken manure treatments compared with the control, respectively. Partial equation PLS-PM analysis further reveals that the main driving factor of ARGs is bacterial abundance, while bacterial diversity has a negative effect on ARGs abundance. Through ANOVA and network analysis, it was found that 30 ARGs were significantly affected by manure, its relative abundance is 0.8–1.4 times that of the control treatment. The qPCR results also proved that the relative abundance of ARGs including sul2, etc. increased with the increase of manure application and these resistance genes in chicken manure treatments were higher than in pig manure treatments. These resistance genes pose a high risk to public health, and chicken manure application posed a higher risk than pig manure. The TC content in the 40–60 cm soil layer was higher in medium- and high-volume pig manure, which was at risk of being transported to groundwater. Our research results deepen the understanding of ARGs transmission in purple soil under agricultural activities and emphasize the species and distribution of antibiotic resistance genes may differ across soil and manure types.