No abstract

Previous studies by others authors, based on biological and chemical tests, concluded that LAS toxicity was not an important microbial selection factor in sludge amended soil, while work based on the use of molecular fingerprinting to evaluate the impact of LAS in aqueous media and marine sediments showed that concentrations as low as 1 mg l(-1) significantly influence the development of the bacterial community structure. Although TGGE is not a strictly quantitative method due to the bias introduced by the PCR reaction, changes of band intensity through experiments are a consequence of a change in the relative abundance of the corresponding populations in the community and can be used as a semiquantitative measure of bacterial diversity. Our results evidence that the Phenylobacterium population represented by band class 7 was favored by the presence of increasing concentrations of LAS in the soil and turned into a dominant population, suggesting its possible ability to use LAS in soil as a source of nutrients. As studies with pure cultures are required to confirm the ability of this population to degrade LAS, isolation strategies are currently under development in our laboratory. The weak effect of LAS on the structure of Actinobacteria and Acidobacteria communities is particularly interesting, as to our knowledge, there are no previous reports regarding the effects of LAS on these bacterial groups in soil. CONCLUSIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS, AND PERSPECTIVES: The Phenylobacterium-related alphaproteobacterial population identified in this work was selectively enriched in LAS polluted soil and is a plausible candidate to play a relevant role in the biotransformation of the surfactant under the conditions tested. The surfactant had no remarkable effects on the Actinobacteria and Acidobacteria fingerprints in soil, even when present at concentrations widely exceeding those reached in soil immediately after sludge application. TGGE fingerprinting provides a reliable and low time-consuming method for the monitoring of the bacterial community structure and dynamics, and we recommend its integration with the biological and chemical analyses usually applied in risk assessment of LAS in the environment.