53 Consistent responses of soil microbial taxonomi

53 Consistent responses of soil microbial taxonomic and functional attributes to mercury pollution across China.RESEARCHOpenAccessConsistentresponsesofsoilmicrobialtaxonomicandfunctionalattributestomercurypollutionacrossChinaYu-RongLiu1,2,3*,ManuelDelgado-Baquerizo4,5,LiBi2,JunZhu3andJi-ZhengHe2,6AbstractBackground:Theecologicalconsequencesofmercury(Hg)pollution—oneofthemajorpollutantsworldwide—onmicrobialtaxonomicandfunctionalattributesremainpoorlyunderstoodandlargelyunexplored.UsingsoilsfromtwotypicalHg-impactedregionsacrossChina,here,weevaluatedtheroleofHgpollutioninregulatingbacterialabundance,diversity,andco-occurrencenetwork.WealsoinvestigatedtheassociationsbetweenHgcontentsandtherelativeabundanceofmicrobialfunctionalgenesbyanalyzingthesoilmetagenomesfromasubsetofthosesites.Results:WefoundthatsoilHglargelyinfluencedthetaxonomicandfunctionalattributesofmicrobialcommunitiesinthetwostudiedregions.Ingeneral,Hgpollutionwasnegativelyrelatedtobacterialabundance,butpositivelyrelatedtothe