Summary
This study examined how industrial disturbance affects soil microbial community structure across five distinct soil ecosystems in the Meshchera Lowland, a heavily industrialised region of southern Moscow. Using Illumina sequencing, the authors documented substantial reductions in taxonomic richness and phylogenetic diversity progressing from background soils to those associated with secondary phytocenoses and technogenic sites including an overgrown phosphogypsum dump and wastewater discharge zone. The work provides a microbial characterisation baseline for understanding ecosystem stability in anthropogenically altered landscapes.
UK applicability
The findings are relevant to the United Kingdom's legacy industrial regions and contaminated land remediation efforts, though the specific phytocenoses and dominant microbial taxa may differ from UK soils. The methodological approach and framework for assessing microbial diversity loss as an indicator of soil ecosystem degradation could inform UK soil health monitoring and assessment protocols.
Key measures
Taxonomic richness, phylogenetic diversity, relative abundance of bacterial and archaeal phyla and fungal classes, ecological function predictions from 16S rRNA and ITS amplicon sequencing using FAPROTAX and FUNGuild
Outcomes reported
The study characterised bacterial, archaeal, and fungal community composition and diversity across five soil phytocenoses in an industrially saturated region, comparing background soils with those associated with secondary phytocenoses and technogenic objects (phosphogypsum dump and industrial wastewater discharge site). It predicted ecological functions of identified microbial taxa using bioinformatic approaches.
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