Effects of Atrazine on Chernozem Microbial Communities Evaluated by Traditional Detection and Modern Sequencing Technology

Abstract

Atrazine is a long residual herbicide commonly used in maize fields. Although atrazine can effectively control weeds and improve crop yield, long-term application leads to continuous pollution in the agricultural ecological environment, especially in the soil ecosystem, and its impact on soil microorganisms is still not clear. Four methods were used in the experiment to clarify the effect of atrazine on the bacterial populations of cultivated soil layers of chernozem in a cold region in different periods: high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), colorimetry, microplate, and high-throughput sequencing. The level of residual atrazine in cold chernozem decreased from 4.645 to 0.077 mg/kg soil over time, and the residue gradually leached into deep soil and then decreased after accumulating to a maximum value. Atrazine significantly affected the activities of urease and polyphenol oxidase activity in the soil layers at different periods but had no significant effect on sucrase and phosphatase activity. Atrazine significantly reduced the diversity of microbial carbon source utilization and total activity in soil layers of 0–10 and 20–30 cm but only reduced the diversity of microbial carbon source utilization in the 10–20 cm layer. Atrazine had no significant effect on bacterial populations (10–12 phyla, 29–34 genera), but had a slight effect on the relative abundance of various groups. Atrazine significantly reduced the diversity of bacterial populations in cultivated soil layers of chernozem in a cold region, and the diversity of bacterial populations decreased with decreased residue. This lays a foundation for guiding the safe use of herbicides on farmland in Northeast China.