Project description:The land damaged by coal mining can be recovered to healthy condition through various reclamation methods. Fertilization is one of the effective methods to improve soil fertility and microbial activity. However, the effects of coal-derived compound fertilizers (SH) on bacterial communities in coal mining subsidence areas still remain unclear. Here, we studied the effects on the nutrient characteristics and bacterial communities in fertilizer-reclaimed soil (CK, without fertilizer; CF, common compound fertilizers; SH, coal-derived compound fertilizers) in coal mining subsidence areas and we applied SH with four different nitrogen application rates (90, 135, 180, and 225 kg/hm2). The results showed that the application of SH significantly increased the contents of available nitrogen (AN), available phosphorus (AP), available potassium (AK), total phosphorus (TP) and soil organic matter (SOM) compared with CK, as well as the bacterial richness (Chao1) and diversity (Shannon) in reclaimed soil that increased first and then decreased with the increase of nitrogen application. Under the same nitrogen application rate (135 kg/hm2), the nutrient content, Chao1 and Shannon of SH2 treatments were higher than those of CF treatment. Meanwhile, SH increased the relative abundance of Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria and Gemmatimonadetes. LEfSe analysis indicated that the taxa of Acidobacteria and Actinobacteria were significantly improved under SH treatments. Canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) and Variance partitioning analysis (VPA) showed that SOM was the most important factor affecting the change of bacterial community structure in reclaimed soil. In conclusion, application of SH can not only increase nutrient content and bacterial diversity of reclaimed soil, but also improve bacterial community structure by increasing bacterial abundance.
Project description:To determine whether and how warming affects the functional capacities of the active microbial communities, GeoChip 5.0 microarray was used. Briefly, four fractions of each 13C-straw sample were selected and regarded as representative for the active bacterial community if 16S rRNA genes of the corresponding 12C-straw samples at the same density fraction were close to zero.
Project description:Here we have compared adult wildtype (N2) C. elegans gene expression when grown on different bacterial environments/fod sources in an effort to model naturally occuring nematode-bacteria interactions at the Konza Prairie. We hypothesize that human-induced changes to natural environments, such as the addition of nitrogen fertalizer, have effects on the bacterial community in soils and this drives downstream changes in the structure on soil bacterial-feeding nematode community structure. Here we have used transcriptional profiling to identify candidate genes involved in the interaction of nematodes and bacteria in nature.
Project description:Exposure to indoor air pollution generated from the combustion of solid fuels is a major risk factor for a spectrum of cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, including lung cancer. In Chinaâs rural counties of Xuanwei and Fuyuan, lung cancer rates are among the highest in the country. While the elevated disease risk in this population has been linked to the widespread usage of bituminous (smoky) coal as compared to anthracite (smokeless) coal, the underlying physiologic mechanism that smoky coal induces in comparison to other fuel types is unclear. As we have previously used airway gene-expression profiling to gain molecular insights into the physiologic effects of cigarette smoke, here we profiled the buccal epithelium of residents exposed to the burning of smoky and smokeless coal in order to understand the physiologic effects of solid fuels. Buccal mucosa scrapings were collected from healthy, non-smoking female residents of Xuanwei and Fuyuan counties who burn coal indoors. RNA was isolated and hybridized onto Affymetrix Human gene 1.0 ST GeneChips, capturing the gene-expression response of (n=26) smoky coal users and (n=9) smokeless coal users. 24-hour indoor personal exposure levels (PM2.5, Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons) were also captured during this sampling period.