Abstract
Little is known about the ecology of microbial plastic degradation. In this study, we employed next generation amplicon sequencing to assess the effect of low-density polyethylene (LDPE) films on the structure of bacterial and fungal communities in four mature compost piles with age ranging between 2 and 10 years. While, bacterial Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Actinobacteria and fungi Ascomycota were most abundant across all facilities, our data indicated significant differences in compost microbiomes between compost facilities, which might be related to compost chemical parameters, age of piles and characteristics of the feedstock. In addition, a substantial shift in the interaction pattern within microbial communities from bulk and plastic-associated (PA) compost was detected. For example, cooperation between Firmicutes Bacillaceae and Thermoactinomycetaceae was detected only in PA compost. However, based on the analysis of the diversity indices and the relative abundances of microbial taxa we can conclude that the presence of plastics in compost had no significant effect on the structure of microbial community.
Highlights
Plastics have a wide range of application in virtually all aspects of human life in both domestic and commercial settings
The bacterial communities were dominated by Proteobacteria (42%), Alphaproteobacteria (17%), Gammaproteobacteria (16%), Deltaproteobacteria (5%), Betaproteobacteria (5%), Bacteroidetes (34%), Actinobacteria (8%), Acidobacteria (3%), Gemmatimonadetes (3%), Firmicutes (3%) and Chloroflexi (2%) (S1 Fig)
The structure of bacterial communities changes as the composting process progresses with the dominance of Firmicutes in the early stages and Proteobacteria in the late stages [11, 12, 35]
Summary
Plastics have a wide range of application in virtually all aspects of human life in both domestic and commercial settings. The current rate of increase in global use of polyethylene and plastic products is approximately 12% per annum, and this continues to rise [1]. The amount of global plastic wastes have tremendously increased, posing various degrees of threat to the environment, ecosystems, economies and all life forms. An organic soil amendment used in agriculture to enhance soil health and productivity, may have a wide range of negative impacts on the environment and agro-ecological systems. These concerns have been expressed by the public including environmental advocates, growers and researchers [3]. Plastics in compost can cause major environmental threats due to their inability to breakdown or their low rate of breakdown which thereby, may lead to environmental pollution, blockage of water ways and death of marine and fresh water flora and fauna [4]
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