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Abstract

Not AvailableMicrobial diversity is a very crucial component for the soil health maintenance. The present study investigatedthe effects of nanozeolite on bacterial diversity of soil from the agriculturalfield which was under 4-yearfieldtrial with wheat crop. Nanozeolite was amended in the treated plot whereas, the control plot did not receive anytreatment. The bacterial population was targeted through the hypervariable (V3) region, which is a part of16SrDNA. The 16SrDNA region is a conserved region among the bacterial species, but to investigate the diversityamong the same species the hypervariable region are the best suited sequences. More than 1 million reads pertreatment revealed very high levels of diversity. The majority of the sequences were attribute to theProteobacteria (about 23–25%), 15% and 30–35%fitted into Actinobacteria and unknown phylum, respectively.Significant higher abundances of bacterial species with NZ treatment encompassed the population associatedwith nutrient cycling, residue decomposition and xenobiosis. The alpha diversity index also indicated betterdiversity and evenness within the treated soil than untreated soil. Ourfindings support the importance of na-nozeolite for better survival of soil microorganisms especially bacteria.1. IntroductionMicrobial community in soil is very diverse where the maximumpercent is covered by prokaryotic populations. Just 1 g of soil housesabout 10 billion microorganisms and thousands of different types ofspecies (Knietch et al., 2003). Soil microbial activity has the capacity toreverse the deteriorating soil properties, since it participates in themajor biogeochemical cycling. Therefore, soil microbial diversity is themain focus for the sustainable agricultural practices in long term(Brown et al., 2002; FAO, 2012). Global adoption of soil conservationpractices in agriculture is necessary to reverse soil degradation, and tomaintain soil fertility and soil biodiversity. Zeolites are naturally oc-curring crystalline aluminum silicates which assist in water infiltrationand retention in soil due to its porous property and the suction exertedby it. It can retain nutrients and hence supposed to improve crop yield(Prasad et al., 2014). The bulk size of nanozeolite limits some extra-ordinary properties which are shown by their nanosized (0–100 nm)counterparts. The nanozeolite has higher cation exchange capacity,surface area, ion adsorption and complexation etc. (Mukhopadhyay,2014).The traditional techniques allow cultivation of about less than 1 %of total microbial population which limits the study based on it (Schlossand Handelsman, 2003). The limitation of cultivable techniques can bedelineated through the application of metagenomic approaches whichcan be applied to study a range of soil environments (Rajendhran J,Gunasekaran, 2008; Handelsman, 1998). The present study in-vestigated the effect of nanozeolite on bacterial population of agri-culturefield through 16SrDNA targeted soil metagenome sequencing.Further research can be done to understand the effect of nanozeolite onthe microbial communities under different conditions, especially fordifferent soil types.2. Materials and methods2.1. Details of study areaThe study was performed in afield experiment on wheat system,established in the winters of 2014–2015 at Norman E. Borlogue Crophttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.bcab.2019.101249Received 14 June 2019; Received in revised form 10 July 2019; Accepted 13 July 2019*Corresponding author. ICAR- Vivekananda Parvatiya Krishi Anusandhan Sansthan, Almora, Uttarakhand, india.E-mail address:[email protected](P. Khati).Biocatalysis and Agricultural Biotechnology 20 (2019) 101249Available online 15 July 20191878-8181/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.TNot Availabl