Effects of Typical Domestic Garbage Dumping on Soil Bacterial Community Structure on Agricultural Land

Objective The aim was to explore the changes in soil bacterial community structure in the habitats of environmental damage.

Method The environmental damage of a typical case contaminated by domestic garbage dumping was investigated in the north of Guangdong Province, China. Furthermore, the correlation between the structure of soil microbial communities and target contaminants was analyzed by using 16S rRNA high-throughput sequencing technology.

Result The number of OTUs and α-diversity index in soil samples of the contaminated area were lower than those of the non-contaminated area, indicating a decrease in the soil bacterial diversity combined with an increase in contamination intensity. The illegal dumping has resulted in the composite contaminants of various heavy metals (e.g., chromium, nickel, zinc, barium, and lead) on soil, in which the bacterial phyla with increased relative abundance were Actinobacteriota and Chloroflexota, while the phyla with decreased relative abundance were Acidobacteriota, Pseudomonadota, and Bacteroidota. The correlation analysis demonstrated that significant correlations between the characteristic pollution indicators such as chromium, nickel, zinc, barium, and lead and the dominant bacterial groups in both the contaminated area and the non-contaminated area.

Conclusion Soil heavy metal complex pollution from domestic garbage dumping significantly reduces the bacterial diversity and significantly changes the bacterial community structure in the contaminated area, providing insights for the application of high-throughput sequencing technology and microbial community structure information in the field of identification and assessment environmental damage.