Evaluation of the leucine incorporation technique for detection of pollution-induced community tolerance to copper in a long-term agricultural field trial with urban waste fertilizers

TY - JOUR

T1 - Evaluation of the leucine incorporation technique for detection of pollution-induced community tolerance to copper in a long-term agricultural field trial with urban waste fertilizers

AU - Lekfeldt, Jonas Duus Stevens

AU - Magid, Jakob

AU - Holm, Peter Engelund

AU - Nybroe, Ole

AU - Brandt, Kristian Koefoed

PY - 2014

Y1 - 2014

N2 - Copper (Cu) is known to accumulate in agricultural soils receiving urban waste products as fertilizers. We here report the use of the leucine incorporation technique to determine pollution-induced community tolerance (Leu-PICT) to Cu in a long-term agricultural field trial. A significantly increased bacterial community tolerance to Cu was observed for soils amended with organic waste fertilizers and was positively correlated with total soil Cu. However, metal speciation and whole-cell bacterial biosensor analysis demonstrated that the observed PICT responses could be explained entirely by Cu speciation and bioavailability artifacts during Leu-PICT detection. Hence, the agricultural application of urban wastes (sewage sludge or composted municipal waste) simulating more than 100 years of use did not result in sufficient accumulation of Cu to select for Cu resistance. Our findings also have implications for previously published PICT field studies and demonstrate that stringent PICT detection criteria are needed for field identification of specific toxicants.

AB - Copper (Cu) is known to accumulate in agricultural soils receiving urban waste products as fertilizers. We here report the use of the leucine incorporation technique to determine pollution-induced community tolerance (Leu-PICT) to Cu in a long-term agricultural field trial. A significantly increased bacterial community tolerance to Cu was observed for soils amended with organic waste fertilizers and was positively correlated with total soil Cu. However, metal speciation and whole-cell bacterial biosensor analysis demonstrated that the observed PICT responses could be explained entirely by Cu speciation and bioavailability artifacts during Leu-PICT detection. Hence, the agricultural application of urban wastes (sewage sludge or composted municipal waste) simulating more than 100 years of use did not result in sufficient accumulation of Cu to select for Cu resistance. Our findings also have implications for previously published PICT field studies and demonstrate that stringent PICT detection criteria are needed for field identification of specific toxicants.

KW - Bacterial community

KW - Bioreporter

KW - Cu-ion selective electrode

KW - Metal speciation

KW - Metal tolerance

U2 - 10.1016/j.envpol.2014.07.013

DO - 10.1016/j.envpol.2014.07.013

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:84905441319

SN - 0269-7491

VL - 194

SP - 78

EP - 85

JO - Environmental Pollution

JF - Environmental Pollution

ER -