Unraveling the Concealed Microbiome of a Dumpsite and a Conserved Wetland

Abstract

Massive quantitities of waste generated by rising human population and rapid urbanisation are often disposed of into open dumps or landfills. The leachates released from these dumpsites penetrate the soil and can alter the existing biotic communities of the soil. In soil, the microbial communities are the dominant drivers which undergo changes in community structure and diversity in response to the changes in their biotic and abiotic environment. The heterogeneous waste disposed in a dumpsite or a landfill releases leachate containing nutrients along with toxic chemicals and allochthonous microorganisms in the soil. How the microbial community structure and diversity changes in a landfill or a dumpsite soil receiving leachate from it are some important questions from the perspective of microbial ecology. To unravel the community structure of bacteria inthe soil receiving dumpsite leachate and to assess the disturbance diversity relationship in this site, a comparative metagenomic analysis of the soil receiving dumpsite leachate and that of the soil of an adjacent wetland (conserved under Ramsar convention) not receiving dumpsite leachate used as the reference point was done to observe the effect of waste dumping activity on microbial diversity. The microbial diversity of the soil receiving dumpsite leachate and that of the wetland soil were found to differ significantly. Higher microbial diversity was observed in the dumpsite soil, while the wetland soil showed relative dominance of a few microbial taxa.