Functional Diversity of Fungal Communities in Soil Contaminated with Diesel Oil.

Agata Borowik,Jadwiga Wyszkowska,Karolina Oszust

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2017.01862

Abstract

The widespread use and consumption of crude oil draws the public’s attention to the fate of petroleum hydrocarbons in the environment, as they can permeate the soil environment in an uncontrollable manner. Contamination of soils with petroleum products, including diesel oil (DO), can cause changes in the microbiological soil properties. The effect of diesel oil on the functional diversity of fungi was tested in a model experiment during 270 days. Fungi were isolated from soil and identified. The functional diversity of fungal communities was also determined. Fungi were identified with the MALDI-TOF method, while the functional diversity was determined using FF-plates made by Biolog®, with 95 carbon sources. Moreover, the diesel oil degradation dynamics was assessed. The research showed that soil contaminated with diesel oil is characterized by a higher activity of oxireductases and a higher number of fungi than soil not exposed to the pressure of this product. The DO pollution has an adverse effect on the diversity of fungal community. This is proved by significantly lower values of the Average Well-Color Development, substrates Richness (R) and Shannon–Weaver (H) indices at day 270 after contamination. The consequences of DO affecting soil not submitted to remediation are persistent. After 270 days, only 64% of four-ringed, 28% of five-ringed, 21% of 2–3-ringed and 16% of six-ringed PAHs underwent degradation. The lasting effect of DO on communities of fungi led to a decrease in their functional diversity. The assessment of the response of fungi to DO pollution made on the basis of the development of colonies on Petri dishes [Colony Development (CD) and Eco-physiological Diversity (EP) indices] is consistent with the analysis based on the FF MicroPlate system by Biolog®. Thus, a combination of the FF MicroPlate system by Biolog® with the simultaneous calculation of CD and EP indices alongside the concurrent determination of the content of PAHs and activity of oxireductases provides an opportunity to achieve relatively complete characterization of the consequences of a long-term impact of diesel oil on soil fungi.

Highlights

The widespread use of crude oil and petroleum products in the world leads to an increasing contamination of the natural environment (Baran et al, 2004; Albert and Tanee, 2011; Lebrero et al, 2012; Mohsenzadeh et al, 2012; Souza et al, 2014; Nwaichi et al, 2015)
One of the most severe threats to the natural environment in central and south-eastern Europe is soil degradation (Günal et al, 2015), in which a large role is played by persistent organic pollutants, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) (Wang et al, 2010; Agnello et al, 2016)
Petroleum products contribute to the deterioration of physicochemical characteristics of soil (Semrany et al, 2012), which has a negative influence on the growth and development of plants (Sivitskaya and Wyszkowski, 2013; Wyszkowska et al, 2015), but – on the other hand – they are an excellent energy source for certain microorganisms (Kucharski and Jastrzebska, 2005; Wyszkowska and Kucharski, 2005)

Summary

Introduction

The widespread use of crude oil and petroleum products in the world leads to an increasing contamination of the natural environment (Baran et al, 2004; Albert and Tanee, 2011; Lebrero et al, 2012; Mohsenzadeh et al, 2012; Souza et al, 2014; Nwaichi et al, 2015). Because petroleum products are a mixture of hydrocarbons with low bioavailability, which are often carcinogenic and mutagenic compounds (Souza et al, 2014), they are considered to be among the most toxic and dangerous pollutants in particular compartments of nature, especially in soil, which is the major pool of their accumulation (Sutton et al, 2013; Covino et al, 2016; Marchand et al, 2017). They can cause changes in of fungal biodiversity of soil. This can have an unfavorable impact on the soil health and grown plants (Alrumman et al, 2015)

Methods

Results

Conclusion