Abstract
Naphthalene is a biocide of soil fauna, particularly of soil arthropods, that has been widely applied to test the functional roles of soil fauna in soil processes. However, whether the use of naphthalene to expel soil fauna has a non-target effect on soil bacteria in subalpine forests remains unclear. We conducted a naphthalene treatment experiment to explore the effects of naphthalene on the soil bacterial community in subalpine forest soil. The results suggested that naphthalene treatment (at 100 g.m−2 per month) significantly increased the abundances of total bacterial, gram-positive bacterial and gram-negative bacterial phospholipid fatty acids (PLFA) and did not change the microbial biomass carbon (MBC), microbial biomass nitrogen (MBN) or MBC/MBN ratio. Moreover, a total of 1038 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were detected by Illumina MiSeq sequencing analysis. Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, and Acidobacteria Chloroflexi were the dominant phyla, and Bradyrhizobium was the most abundant genus. The naphthalene treatment did not affect soil bacterial diversity or community structure. Overall, these results demonstrated that the naphthalene treatment had non-target effects on the active bacterial community abundance but not the soil bacterial community structure. Thus, the non-target effects of naphthalene treatment should be considered before using it to expel soil fauna.
Highlights
Soil microorganisms are the foundation of complex soil food webs, and these microorganisms participate in soil processes, such as litter decomposition, nutrient mineralization and greenhouse gas emissions, through the detrital food chain in forests[1,2]
Naphthalene treatment slightly increased the concentrations of soil microbial biomass carbon (MBC) (Fig. 1a) and nitrogen (MBN) (Fig. 1b) but decreased the MBC/microbial biomass nitrogen (MBN) ratio (Fig. 1c)
The total bacterial, gram-positive (G+) bacterial, and gram-negative (G−) bacterial phospholipid fatty acids (PLFA) abundances were significantly increased in the naphthalene treatment (Fig. 2a,b,d), but the G+/G− ratio did not change significantly (Fig. 2c)
Summary
Soil microorganisms are the foundation of complex soil food webs, and these microorganisms participate in soil processes, such as litter decomposition, nutrient mineralization and greenhouse gas emissions, through the detrital food chain in forests[1,2]. Previous studies have shown that naphthalene can directly inhibit soil fauna, www.nature.com/scientificreports/. Such as soil arthropods[13,14,15]. Studies have indicated that naphthalene may indirectly influence soil process through potential non-target effects on the microbial community and soil nutrients[16,17,18]. It is necessary to study the non-target effects of naphthalene on soil microbial biomass, active bacterial abundance and the bacterial community when expelling soil fauna. Subalpine forests constitute the main part of the southwestern forests of China, and rigorous field assessments of the efficacy of naphthalene treatment for suppressing soil fauna as well as its potential non-target effects on the soil microbial community are lacking in this region. The study’s objectives were to (i) quantify naphthalene’s non-target effect on soil microbial biomass; (ii) measure naphthalene’s non-target effect on active bacterial abundance; and (iii) determine naphthalene’s non-target effect on the soil bacterial community structure
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