Soil Fertilization with Palm Oil Mill Effluent Has a Short-Term Effect on the Bacterial Diversity of an Amazonian Agricultural Land Area

Johnes Pinto Sanches; Sávio Souza Costa; Diego Assis das Graças; Artur Silva; Guilherme Costa Baião; Rennan G Moreira; Marcelo Murad Magalhães; Roberto Lisboa Cunha; Rafael Azevedo Baraúna

doi:10.3390/microorganisms12030507

Soil Fertilization with Palm Oil Mill Effluent Has a Short-Term Effect on the Bacterial Diversity of an Amazonian Agricultural Land Area

Microorganisms. 2024 Mar 1;12(3):507. doi: 10.3390/microorganisms12030507.

Authors

Johnes Pinto Sanches¹, Sávio Souza Costa¹, Diego Assis das Graças¹, Artur Silva¹, Guilherme Costa Baião², Rennan G Moreira³, Marcelo Murad Magalhães⁴, Roberto Lisboa Cunha⁴, Rafael Azevedo Baraúna¹

Affiliations

¹ Biological Engineering Laboratory, Innovation Space, Guamá Science and Technology Park, Belém 66075-750, Brazil.
² Laboratory of Molecular and Computational Biology of Fungi, Department of Microbiology, Institute of Biological Sciences, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte 30120-140, Brazil.
³ Multiuser Laboratories Center, Center of Genomics, Institute of Biological Sciences, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte 31270-901, Brazil.
⁴ Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA), Eastern Amazon, Belém 66095-100, Brazil.

Abstract

Palm oil derived from the fruits of Elaeis guineensis Jacq. has global economic importance and is largely produced in tropical regions. The palm oil production process leads to a highly polluting waste called palm oil mill effluent (POME). A strategy commonly used by producers to overcome environmental issues and to improve soil fertility is the reuse of POME as a fertilizer due to the chemical and biological characteristics of the effluent. In this research, three groups were analyzed: soil without POME application (control group) and soil samples after 4 and 9 days of POME application. An environmental DNA metabarcoding approach was used. eDNA was extracted, and the V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene was amplified and sequenced in the Illumina MiSeq platform. The abundance of Proteobacteria (48.1%) and Firmicutes (9.0%) was higher in fertilized soil, while Bacteroidetes (20.3%) and Verrucomicrobia (7.8%) were more abundant in control soil. Additionally, the effluent seemed to modify soil characteristics favoring taxa responsible for the mineralization of organic compounds and nitrogen fixation such as species of Gammaproteobacteria class. Our study highlights the influence of POME on soil biological components and contributes to the sustainable production of palm oil in the Amazon.

Keywords: 16S rRNA; POME; bioinformatics; metabarcoding; microbiome; palm oil.

Grants and funding

Johnes P. Sanches would like to thank the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) for the PhD scholarship (grant number 88887.466839/2019-00). The authors would like to thank the Pró-Reitoria de Pesquisa e Pós-Graduação (PROPESP) from Universidade Federal do Pará (UFPA), for the Article Processing Charge payment through the PAPQ 2023 Call.