Heavy metal pollution increases soil microbial carbon limitation: Evidence from ecological enzyme stoichiometry

Highlights

• The microbial metabolism was limited by soil carbon (C) and phosphorus (P) under heavy metal stress.

• The increase of heavy metal concentration significantly increased the microbial C limitation.

• Heavy metal pollution can increase the loss of soil C by affecting microbial metabolism.

• Microbial metabolism limitation can be used as a potential index to evaluate the toxicity of heavy metals.

Abstract

Heavy metals can exist in soil for a long time and seriously affect soil quality. The coexistence of various heavy metal pollutants leads to biotoxicity and alters the activity of microorganisms. Soil microbial metabolism plays an important role in nutrient cycling and biochemical processes of soil ecosystem. However, the effects of heavy metal contamination on microbial metabolism in soil are still unclear. This study aims to reveal the responses of microbial metabolic limitation to heavy metals using extracellular enzyme stoichiometry, and further to evaluate the potential impacts of heavy metal pollution on soil nutrient cycle. The results showed that soil microbial metabolism reflected by the ecoenzymatic activities had a significant response to soil heavy metals pollution. The metabolism was limited by soil carbon (C) and phosphorus (P) under varied heavy metal levels, and the increase of heavy metal concentration significantly increased the microbial C limitation, while had no effect on microbial P limitation. Microorganisms may increase the energy investment in metabolism to resist heavy metal stress and thus induce C release. The results suggest that energy metabolism selected by microorganisms in response to long-term heavy metal stress could increase soil C release, which is not conducive to the soil C sequestration. Our study emphasizes that ecoenzymatic stoichiometry could be a promising methodology for evaluating the toxicity of heavy metal pollution and its ecological effects on nutrient cycling.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Heavy metal contamination / Microbial metabolisms / Ecoenzymatic stoichiometry / Soil nutrient limitation

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Acknowledgments

This work was financially supported by the Science Foundation for Distinguished Youth of Shaanxi Province (2020JC-31), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41977031), CAS “Light of West China” Program (XAB2016A03) and Program of State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology CAS (SKLLQGZR1803).

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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