Vegetation types impact microbial interaction with Sb contaminants in mining contaminated soil Raw sequence reads. Vegetation types impact microbial interaction with Sb contaminants in mining contaminated soil

Antimony (Sb) contamination is a growing environmental concern due to the increasing mining and industrial usage of this metalloid. Remediation of Sb contaminated soil is a prolonged process. Vegetation has been suggested to be a cost-effective method for long-term management of Sb contaminated sites. Various plant types have been found to thrive in contaminated sites. Their impacts on Sb speciation, as well as on the indigenous microbial community, however, remain unclear. In the current study, soils of three vegetation types were collected from two Sb mining areas in Guizhou, China. Comparisons of geochemical and microbiological properties among the three vegetation types revealed that vegetation was a key driver in shaping the soil biogeochemical characteristics. Significant differences were observed between agricultural soil and the other two types in both geochemical and microbiological properties, indicating distinct microbial-environment interactions in anthropogenic activity impacted agricultural soil. The dominant taxa, such as Flavobacterium, Geobacter, Janthinobacterium, Clostridium, and Mycobacterium, were revealed to positively respond to various contaminant fractions, indicating the community is adapted to the chronically contaminated environment. The regulation of these dominant genera by the geochemical properties, however, appeared to be strain-specific.