Evaluation of the impact of animal charcoal on soil bacterial population, hydrocarbon degradation, heavy metal tolerance and antibiotic resistance relevant functions

Samples for the study were collected from soil contaminated with animal charcoal from cottage industry producing "ponmo" and nearby control soils. Ponmo is a meat product from animal (cow) hide. The processes involves in the removal of fur from the animal skin in the industry by burning the skin with wood, petroleum products and used tyres thus leading to the deposition of toxic materials like animal charcoal, petroleum hydrocarbons and dioxins into the environment. Apart from animal hide, other wastes like hoofs, horns and bones are also burnt. There is paucity of information as regard the physicochemistry, pollution level, microbial communities and repertoire of gens and genomes potentiated by such unique cocktail of pollutants. Building on our previous works that had yielded hydrocarbon degraders and insight into the microbial community structure in a number of sites, we have now embarked on a more extensive research covering the characterization of the impacted soils, strategy for remediation and also biotechnological potentials of the unique phylotypes.