Abrahamsson

Artmann

Berry

Boström

Bradley

Brown

Caporaso

Chaudhary

Cole

Crampon

De Goffau

Edgar

Finnish Meteorological Institute

Folwell

Green

Hanski

Haritash

Haugland

Heederik

Hennessee

Heywood

Hiller

Hong

Honkonen

Huse

Ismail

Johnsen

Juhasz

Kamal

Kanaly

Knip

Koivula

Kozich

Lehtimäki

Lors

Manter

Martin

Mclellan

Morabito

Morel

Mukherjee

Oleszczuk

Pakarinen

Parajuli

Peng

Priha

Pruesse

Qian

R Core Team

Ravindra

Ruokolainen

Saarnio

Salter

Santoru

Sawulski

Schloss

SFS 3008

SFS-ISO 10390

Singleton

Sinkkonen

Song

Tansel

Tarvainen

Teng

United Nations

Veach

Wang

World Health Organization (WHO)

Yang

Zahed

Zhou

PeerJ


               Background
               Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) accumulate in urban soils, and PAH contamination can change soil microbial community composition. Environmental microbiota is associated with human commensal microbiota, immune system and health. Therefore, studies investigating the degradation of PAHs, and the consequences of soil pollution on microbial communities in urban landscaping materials, are crucial.
            
            
               Methods
               Four landscaping materials (organic matter 1, 2, 13 and 56%) were contaminated with PAHs commonly found at urban sites (phenanthrene, fluoranthene, pyrene, chrysene and benzo(b)fluoranthene) in PAH concentrations that reflect urban soils in Finland (2.4 µg g -1 soil dry weight). PAHs were analyzed initially and after 2, 4, 8 and 12 weeks by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Half-lives of PAHs were determined based on 12-weeks degradation. Bacterial communities were analyzed at 1 and 12 weeks after contamination using Illumina MiSeq 16S rRNA gene metabarcoding.
            
            
               Results
               Half-lives ranged from 1.5 to 4.4 weeks for PAHs with relatively low molecular weights (phenanthrene, fluoranthene and pyrene) in landscaping materials containing 1–2% organic matter. In contrast, in materials containing 13% and 56% organic matter, the half-lives ranged from 2.5 to 52 weeks. Shorter half-lives of phenanthrene and fluoranthene were thus associated with low organic matter content. The half-life of pyrene was inversely related to the relative abundance of Beta-, Delta- and Gammaproteobacteria, and diversity of Bacteroidetes and Betaprotebacteria. Compounds with higher molecular weights followed compound-specific patterns. Benzo(b)fluoranthene was resistant to degradation and half-life of chrysene was shorter when the relative abundance of Betaproteobacteria was high. Temporal microbiota changes involved increase in the relative abundance of Deltaproteobacteria and decrease in genera Flavobacterium and Rhodanobacter. Exposure to PAHs seems to adjust microbial community composition, particularly within class Beta- and Deltaproteobacteria.
            
            
               Conclusions
               In this study, PAH degradation depended on the organic matter content and bacterial community composition of landscaping materials. Contamination seems to alter bacterial community composition in landscaping materials depending on material type. This alteration includes changes in bacterial phyla associated with human health and immune system. This may open new possibilities for managing urban environments by careful selection of landscaping materials, to benefit health and wellbeing.
            </jats:sec

Marja I. Roslund

Mira Grönroos

Anna-Lea Rantalainen

Ari Jumpponen

Martin Romantschuk

Anirudra Parajuli

Heikki Hyöty

Olli Laitinen

Aki Sinkkonen

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Half-lives of PAHs and temporal microbiota changes in commonly used urban landscaping materials

Table S9: Permanova and
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Table S9: Permanova and t

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