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Adsorbed Sulfamethoxazole Exacerbates the Effects of Polystyrene (∼2 μm) on Gut Microbiota and the Antibiotic Resistome of a Soil Collembolan
journal contribution
posted on 2019-10-16, 21:14 authored by Qian Xiang, Dong Zhu, Qing-Lin Chen, Patrick O’Connor, Xiao-Ru Yang, Min Qiao, Yong-Guan ZhuMicroplastics pollution
in the environment is now receiving worldwide
attention; however, the effects of copollution of antibiotics and
microplastics on the gut microbiome of globally distributed and functionally
important nontarget soil animals remain poorly understood. We studied
a model collembolan (Folsomia candida) and found that the ingestion of microplastics (polystyrene, 2–2.9
μm) substantially altered the gut microbiome, antibiotic resistance
gene (ARG) profile, and the isotopic fractionation in the soil collembolan
tissue. Importantly, collembolans exposed to polystyrene microplastics
loaded with sulfamethoxazole (MA) presented a distinctive gut microbiome,
ARG profile, and isotopic fractionation compared to those exposed
to polystyrene alone (MH). We observed that the abundance of ARGs
and mobile genetic elements (MGEs) in the MA-treated collembolan guts
was significantly higher than in the MH and the control treatments.
There were also strong interactions between the gut microbiome and
ARGs in the collembolan guts. We further found that bacterial β-diversity
correlated significantly with the δ13C and δ15N values in collembolan body tissues. Together, our results
indicate that changes in isotopic fractionation and ARG profiles in
the collembolan were induced by the changes in gut microbiota and
suggest that microplastics from diverse sources may have profound
influences on soil fauna and soil food webs.