Exploring microbial diversity responses in agricultural fields: a comparative analysis under pesticide stress and non-stress conditions

Saurabh Gangola; Samiksha Joshi; Geeta Bhandari; Garima Pant; Anita Sharma; Kahkashan Perveen; Najat A Bukhari; Ranjana Rani

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2023.1271129

Exploring microbial diversity responses in agricultural fields: a comparative analysis under pesticide stress and non-stress conditions

Front Microbiol. 2023 Oct 20:14:1271129. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2023.1271129. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Saurabh Gangola¹, Samiksha Joshi¹, Geeta Bhandari², Garima Pant³, Anita Sharma⁴, Kahkashan Perveen⁵, Najat A Bukhari⁵, Ranjana Rani⁶

Affiliations

¹ School of Agriculture, Graphic Era Hill University, Bhimtal, India.
² Department of Biosciences, Swami Rama Himalayan University, Dehradun, India.
³ Department of PDP, Graphic Era Hill University, Bhimtal, India.
⁴ Department of Microbiology, GBPUAT, Pantnagar, India.
⁵ Department of Botany and Microbiology, College of Science, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
⁶ School of Agriculture and Food Science, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia.

Abstract

Exposure to pesticides changes the microbial community structure in contaminated agricultural fields. To analyze the changes in the native microbial composition qRT-PCR, a metagenomic study was conducted. The qRT-PCR results exhibited that the uncontaminated soil has a higher copy number of 16S rDNA relative to the soil contaminated with pesticide. Metagenome analysis interprets that uncontaminated soil is enriched with proteobacteria in comparison with pesticide-contaminated soil. However, the presence of Actinobacteria, Firmicutes, and Bacteroides was found to be dominant in the pesticide-spiked soil. Additionally, the presence of new phyla such as Chloroflexi, Planctomycetes, and Verrucomicrobia was noted in the pesticide-spiked soil, while Acidobacteria and Crenarchaeota were observed to be extinct. These findings highlight that exposure to pesticides on soil significantly impacts the biological composition of the soil. The abundance of microbial composition under pesticide stress could be of better use for the treatment of biodegradation and bioremediation of pesticides in contaminated environments.

Keywords: agriculture; biodegradation; environment; metagenomics; pesticides.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. The authors acknowledge the support provided by Researchers Supporting Project Number RSP2023R229, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.