RAMIRAN International ConferenceMine contaminated soils are very unfavourable environments with limiting factors, in particular residual high levels
of heavy metals, soil acidity, lack of organic matter and poor substrate structure. Toxic effects of HM on soil
microorganisms have been extensively studied (Frostegård et al., 1993; Bååth et al., 1998) and the measurements of
community structure indicated that the HM had an effect resulting in a change in community composition (Ellis et
al., 2003; Rajapaksha et al, 2004). Nowadays molecular biology techniques, such as the analysis of phospholipid
fatty acid (PLFA) patterns, make it possible to study the microbial community structure of soil microorganisms.
The PLFA technique has been used to elucidate different strategies employed by microorganism to adapt to changed
environmental conditions under wide ranges of soil types, management practices, climatic origins and different
perturbations (Zelles, 1999). By phospholipid fatty acid analysis it is possible to examine broad scale patterns in
microbial community structure (Bååth et al. 2005) and generally, after the application of multivariate statistical
analyses, whole community fatty acids profiles indicate which communities are similar or different. Determination
both microbial community composition and biomass size by this direct method gives results that very closely
represent the in situ soil conditions and is currently used for soil monitoring purposes (Nielsen and Winding, 2002).
This study aimed to evaluate the effect of different remediation technologies in a mine contaminated soil
including several organic and inorganic treatments combined with liming by the soil microbial community structure
analysi
