Soil microbial community parameters affected by microplastics and other plastic residues.

Introduction: The impact of plastics on terrestrial ecosystems is receiving increasing attention. Although of great importance to soil biogeochemical processes, how plastics influence soil microbes have yet to be systematically studied. The primary objectives of this study are to evaluate whether plastics lead to divergent responses of soil microbial community parameters, and explore the potential driving factors.

Long-term plastic mulching decreases rhizoplane soil carbon sequestration by decreasing microbial anabolism.

Ridge-furrow with plastic mulching (RFPM) is a widely used agricultural practice in rain-fed farmlands. However, the impact of microbial related metabolism on soil organic carbon (SOC) is not fully understood. Amino sugar analysis, high-throughput sequencing, and high-throughput qPCR approaches are combined to investigate this topic, based on a long-term experiment.