Soil bacteria community response to greywater irrigation

Water shortage is a growing issue in many regions of the world particularly in rural areas, where people begin to use greywater to irrigate their soil. Sometimes greywater is treated using economic homemade filters, such as sand and worm-made filters “vermifilters”. Herein, we studied the response of soil microbial community to the irrigation with greywater (derived from washmachine) or filtered (sand and vermifilter) in comparison with potable water and compare it with water quality and physical-chemical characteristics of the soil. In general, bacteria community structure changed in association with the irrigation, reducing their abundance, based in 16S rRNA gene copy numbers (q-pcr), and their composition. Planctomycetes, Gammaproteobacteria, Nitrospirae, Chlorofexi were potentially enriched in soils irrigated with greywater (directly or filtered). Irrigation induced changes in pH, conductivity and organic matter content in soils, variables associated with main bacterial community shifts.