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Journal ArticleDOI

Toxicity of heavy metals to microorganisms and microbial processes in agricultural soils: a review.

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TLDR
In this article, a hypothesis is formulated to explain how microorganisms may become affected by gradually increasing soil metal concentrations and this is discussed in relation to defining safe or critical soil metal loadings for soil protection.
Abstract
An increasing body of evidence suggests that microorganisms are far more sensitive to heavy metal stress than soil animals or plants growing on the same soils. Not surprisingly, most studies of heavy metal toxicity to soil microorganisms have concentrated on effects where loss of microbial function can be observed and yet such studies may mask underlying effects on biodiversity within microbial populations and communities. The types of evidence which are available for determining critical metal concentrations or loadings for microbial processes and populations in agricultural soil are assessed, particularly in relation to the agricultural use of sewage sludge. Much of the confusion in deriving critical toxic concentrations of heavy metals in soils arises from comparison of experimental results based on short-term laboratory ecotoxicological studies with results from monitoring of long-term exposures of microbial populations to heavy metals in field experiments. The laboratory studies in effect measure responses to immediate, acute toxicity (disturbance) whereas the monitoring of field experiments measures responses to long-term chronic toxicity (stress) which accumulates gradually. Laboratory ecotoxicological studies are the most easily conducted and by far the most numerous, but are difficult to extrapolate meaningfully to toxic effects likely to occur in the field. Using evidence primarily derived from long-term field experiments, a hypothesis is formulated to explain how microorganisms may become affected by gradually increasing soil metal concentrations and this is discussed in relation to defining “safe” or “critical” soil metal loadings for soil protection.

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Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI

Extent of copper tolerance and consequences for functional stability of the ammonia-oxidizing community in long-term copper-contaminated soils.

TL;DR: It was concluded that the nitrifying community changed structurally in all long-term Cu-exposed field sites and that these changes were associated with increased Cu tolerance but not with a loss of functional stability.
Journal ArticleDOI

Stabilization of dissolved organic matter by aluminium: A toxic effect or stabilization through precipitation?

TL;DR: In this paper, an incubation experiment (6 weeks) with two DOM solutions (40 mg C litre−1) derived from two acidic forests and possessing large differences in composition was conducted to evaluate toxic effects on microorganisms.
Journal ArticleDOI

Manure management and soil biodiversity: Towards more sustainable food systems in the EU

TL;DR: In this article, the authors explored the impact of manure from farmed animals on soil biodiversity by considering factors that determine the effects of manure and vice versa, and found that coupling manure management with soil biodiversity can mitigate present and future environmental risks.
Journal ArticleDOI

The potential of soil protein-based methods to indicate metal contamination

TL;DR: In this paper, a variety of methods were examined and the effects of cadmium and lime treatment on total soil protein, protein expression and microbial biomass were determined, and a simple snap freeze protein extraction technique (using liquid nitrogen) was found to extract the most protein from soil samples compared to a bead beating method used commonly for DNA extraction from soil.
Journal ArticleDOI

Identification of metal toxicity in sewage sludge leachate.

TL;DR: Toxicity of the sludge leachate apparently varied during the year, and that filtration through the CM-resin reduced most of the toxicity followed by the addition of EDTA, indicated that one or more metals were responsible for the observed toxicity.
References
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An extraction method for measuring soil microbial biomass c

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Journal ArticleDOI

Diversity in tropical rain forests and coral reefs.

TL;DR: The commonly observed high diversity of trees in tropical rain forests and corals on tropical reefs is a nonequilibrium state which, if not disturbed further, will progress toward a low-diversity equilibrium community as mentioned in this paper.
Book

Plant Strategies and Vegetation Processes

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present plant strategies in the established phase and the regenerative phase in the emerging phase, respectively, and discuss the relationship between the two phases: primary strategies and secondary strategies.
Journal ArticleDOI

Evidence for the existence of three primary strategies in plants and its relevance to ecological and evolutionary theory

TL;DR: A triangular model based upon the three strategies of evolution in plants may be reconciled with the theory of r- and K-selection, provides an insight into the processes of vegetation succession and dominance, and appears to be capable of extension to fungi and to animals.
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