Hexachlorobutadiene pollution affected soil ammonia oxidation processes through affecting ammonia oxidizing microorganisms

Hexachlorobutadiene (HCBD) is a persistent organic pollutant (POP), which poses a substantial risk to ecological and human health. Here, a 30-day microcosmic controlled experiment was conducted to systematically investigate the effects of HCBD on soil ammonia oxidation process and ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA). The results indicated that the soil ammonia oxidation process was inhibited on day 6 after being treated with 100 mg/kg (L group) and 200 mg/kg (H group) HCBD. The abundance of amoA genes in AOB was significantly reduced in the HCBD-treated groups during the initial six days, group L and group H decreased by 20.29 % (0.001 < p ≤0.01) and 19.27 % (0.01 < p ≤ 0.05), respectively. While in AOA, those decreased significantly from day 6 to day 30, group L and group H reduced by 31.88 % (0.001 < p ≤0.01) and 33.4 % (0.001 < p ≤ 0.01), respectively. HCBD exerted a pronounced effect on the diversity of AOA relative to AOB. The unclassified_d__Unclassified and unclassified_g__norank_p__Thaumarchaeota, the dominant species in AOA, exhibited highly significant negative correlations with HCBD (r = -0.67; r = -0.66). The uncultured_soil_archaeon, unclassified_d__unclassified and unclassified_g__norank__p__Thaumarchaeota demonstrated significant negative correlations with NO₃^--N (r = -0.38; r = -0.46; r = -0.46), while the uncultured bacterium had a significant positive correlation with NH₄⁺-N (r = 0.36). In AOB, the dominant species was norank__d__Bacteria which demonstrated a significant positive correlation with HCBD (r = 0.53). RDA analysis revealed that the HCBD and NH₄⁺-N were the most important environmental factors affecting AOA communities, while the AOB communities were mainly affected by NH₄⁺-N and pH. These results suggest HCBD contamination exerted pronounced impact on soil AOA and AOB, especially AOA, which directly influenced the ammonia oxidation process.