Cadmium Pollution Impact on the Bacterial Community of Haplic Cambisols in Northeast China and Inference of Resistant Genera

Abstract

Modern industry and agriculture has aggravated heavy metal pollution of soils, of which cadmium (Cd) is among the common most toxic and widely distributed pollutants. Bacteria are a major group of microorganisms and the most abundantly occurring in soils. In Northeastern China, many mining sites occur whose soils need reclamation and Cd pollution has commonly existed. Haplic Cambisols is the zonal forest soil here. Yet, how Cd contamination may affect the bacterial characteristics and chemical properties of Haplic Cambisols is still unknown. Here, we applied different concentrations of Cd contamination to Haplic Cambisols and monitored the resulting changes to bacterial community structure and diversity, as well as the general soil environments; we then inferred Cd-resistant bacteria to provide theoretical support for microbial remediation of Cd-contaminated Haplic Cambisols in Northeast China. Haplic Cambisols were treated with different concentrations of CdCl2 solutions (0 [CK], 1, 5, 25, 50, 75, 100 mg kg−1, respectively expressed as T1, T2, T3, T4, T5, and T6) and incubated for 50 days, and then bacterial community composition was identified, and the pH, organic matter, hydrolytic nitrogen, available phosphorus, potassium, and cadmium contents of the soils were measured. Adding higher concentrations of Cd usually significantly increased the richness and diversity of the bacterial community in Haplic Cambisols in terms of both species and abundance with the effects of some treatments being not significant, and this effect varied with Cd concentration. Applying Cd significantly influenced the bacterial community’s structure and its metabolic functioning. Cd also influenced bacterial diversity via several key soil environmental factors, namely the pH, organic matter, and hydrolytic nitrogen contents. Pseudolabrys, Ralstonia, Reyranella, Afipia, Pelomonas, Rhizomicrobium, and Bradyrhizobium within Proteobacteria; Rhodanobacter from Bacteroidetes; and Nitrobacter within Nitrospirae were the main resistant bacteria. Higher concentrations of Cd increased the bacterial community richness and diversity of Haplic Cambisols, as well as the relative abundance of their main bacterial populations. The Cd-resistant genera were inferred, and relative abundances of Ralstonia, Bradyrhizobium, Rhizomicrobium, and Afipia were the highest.