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Comparison of the Effects of LDPE and PBAT Film Residues on Soil Microbial Ecology

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Abstract

The plastic film is extensively applied with limited recycling, leading to the long-run residue accumulation in soil, which offers a distinctive habitat for microorganisms, and creates a plastisphere. In this study, traditional low-density polyethylene (LDPE) plastic film and biodegradable polybutylene adipate terephthalate (PBAT) plastic film materials were selected to test their effects on soil microbial ecology. Based on high-throughput sequencing, compared to the soil environment, the alpha-diversity of bacterial communities in plastisphere was lower, and the abundance of Actinobacteria increased. Plastic film residues, as bacterial habitats, exhibited greater heterogeneity and harbor unique bacterial communities. The communities were distinguished between plastisphere and soil environment by means of a random-forest (RF) machine-learning model. Prominent distinctions emerged among bacterial functions between soil environment and plastisphere, especially regarding organics degradation. The neutral model and null model indicated that the constitution of bacterial communities was dominated by random processes except in LDPE plastisphere. The bacterial co-occurrence network of the plastisphere exhibited higher complexity and modularity. This study contributes to our comprehending of characteristics of plastisphere bacterial communities in soil environment and the associated ecological risks of plastic film residues accumulation.

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Data Availability

Data Availability FASTQ files are deposited in the Sequence Read Archive (SRA) at the National Center for Biotechnology Information, accession numbers PRJNA1083493.

Code Availability

Not applicable.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 52200109) and the State Scholarship Fund and the Key R&D and Promotion Project of Henan Province (No.202102310278). The authors would also like to thank the support of the School of Water Conservancy Science and Engineering in Zhengzhou University.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 52200109), the State Scholarship Fund and the Key R&D and Promotion Project of Henan Province (No.202102310278).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Water Conservancy and Transportation, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, 450001, China

    Yuanyuan Jiao, Guangyi Zhang, **aoyang Ai & **ao**g Wang

  2. Institute of Underground Engineering, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, 450001, China

    Yuanyuan Jiao, Guangyi Zhang, **aoyang Ai & **ao**g Wang

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  1. Yuanyuan Jiao
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  2. Guangyi Zhang
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  3. **aoyang Ai
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  4. **ao**g Wang
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Yuanyuan Jiao contributed toward investigation, data curation, visualization, and writing – original draft. Guangyi Zhang contributed toward writing – review & editing, methodology, resources, and supervision. **aoyang Ai contributed toward formal analysis, investigation and data curation. **ao**g Wang contributed toward investigation, data curation and conceptualization.

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Correspondence to Guangyi Zhang.

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Jiao, Y., Zhang, G., Ai, X. et al. Comparison of the Effects of LDPE and PBAT Film Residues on Soil Microbial Ecology. Curr Microbiol 81, 185 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00284-024-03722-9

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