Alteration of soil microbiomes in an arsenic and antimony co-contamination zone after dam failure

Abstract

Arsenic (As) and antimony (Sb), two toxic metal(loid)s, behave similarly and commonly occur in mine tailings. Yet, responses of microbes to As and Sb co-contamination in tailings dam failure-affected area remain limited. Herein, soil microbiomes (archaea, bacteria and fungi) across two contrasting sites (tailing-contaminated farmland and nearby undisturbed forestland) at a Sb-Au mining district in Chizhou, China were investigated by high-throughput sequencing. Results showed that As and Sb occurred mainly in the residual form, accounting for 55.82% and 52.04%, respectively. The bioavailable form was 12.77% and 10.39% in contaminated farmland compared to 13.31% and 11.66% in undisturbed forestland, respectively. Contrary to archaea and fungi, bacterial alpha-diversity significantly increased in contaminated farmland. The taxa-taxa interactions in archaea were most robust, followed by bacteria; and fungi were the weakest, which was corresponding to the habitat niche breadth. Microbial communities were affected by the deterministic processes with a modified stochasticity ratio (MST) value of 36.36%, whereas more stochasticity (MST = 49.71%) was raised in contaminated farmland than in undisturbed forestland (MST = 36.98%). The microbial function based on taxonomy-based inference indicated that nitrogen and carbon metabolisms associated with archaea and bacteria increased in contaminated farmland, as well as plant pathogen, wood saprotroph and endophyte related with fungi. The turnover of soil microbiomes was tightly correlated with As and Sb speciation. Collectively, this study reveals that the soil microbial survival strategies to As-Sb co-contamination after dam failure, providing guidance for the development of bioremediation and tailings management strategies.