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Response of soil microbial communities to red mud-based stabilizer remediation of cadmium-contaminated farmland

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Abstract

In this work, a field test was conducted to investigate the effects of heavy metal stabilizer addition on brown rice and microbial variables in a cadmium (Cd)-contaminated farmland from April to October in 2016. Compared with the control, red mud-based stabilizer (RMDL) effectively reduced the concentration of Cd in brown rice (with the removal rate of 48.14% in early rice, 20.24 and 47.62% in late rice). The results showed that adding 0.3 kg m−2 RDML in early rice soil or soil for both early and late rice increased the microbial biomass carbon (MBC), the number of culturable heterotrophic bacteria and fungi, and the catalase activity in soil at different stages of paddy rice growth. Furthermore, there was no notable difference in the diversity of the bacterial species, community composition, and relative abundance at phylum (or class) or operational taxonomic unit (OTU) levels between the control and treatment (RMDL addition) groups. In a word, RMDL could be highly recommended as an effective remediation stabilizer for Cd-contaminated farmland, since its continuous application in paddy soil cultivating two seasons rice soil could effectively decrease the Cd content in brown rice and had no negative impact on soil microorganisms.

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Acknowledgements

The study was financially supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC; Grant Nos. 51709103, 51409024, 51222805, 51408219, 51579096, 51521006, and 51508175), The Special Environmental Protection Foundation for Public Welfare Project (201509032), Project of Science and Technology of Hunan Province (2015WK3016), and Project of Science and Technology of Hunan Province (2016WK2010).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Resources and Environment, Hunan Agriculture University, Changsha, 410128, China

    Hui Li, Lin Luo, Jiachao Zhang, Yuan Yang, Anwei Chen, Qiming Mao & Yaoyu Zhou

  2. College of Biological Science and Engineering, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou, 350108, China

    Lemian Liu

  3. Hunan Modern Environment Technology Co., LTD, Changsha, 410000, China

    Yan Liu

  4. College of Biological Science and Technology, Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha, 410128, China

    Jianhong Wei

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  1. Hui Li
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Li, H., Liu, L., Luo, L. et al. Response of soil microbial communities to red mud-based stabilizer remediation of cadmium-contaminated farmland. Environ Sci Pollut Res 25, 11661–11669 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-018-1409-4

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