Almost 81% of nitrogen fertilizers are applied in form of urea but most of it is lost due to volatilization and leaching leading to environmental pollution. In this regard, slow-release nano fertilizers can be an effective solution. Here, we have synthesized different Fe₃O₄-urea nanocomposites with Fe₃O₄ NPs: urea ratio (1:1, 1:2, 1:3) ie. NC-1, 2, and 3 respectively, and checked their efficacy for growth and yield enhancement. Oryza sativa L. cv. Swarna seedlings were treated with different NCs for 14 days in hydroponic conditions and significant up-regulation of photosynthetic efficiency and nitrogen metabolism were observed due to increased availability of nitrogen and iron. The discriminant functional analysis confirmed that the NC3 treatment yielded the best results so further gene expression studies were performed for NC-3 treated seedlings. Significant changes in expression profiles of ammonia and nitrate transporters indicated that NC-3 treatment enhanced nitrogen utilization efficiency (NUE) due to sustained slow release of urea. From pot experiments, we found significant enhancement of growth, grain nutrient content, and NUE in NC supplemented sets. 1.45 fold increase in crop yield was achieved when 50% N was supplemented in form of NC-3 and the rest in form of ammonium nitrate. NC supplementation can also play a vital role in minimizing the use of bulk N fertilizers because, when 75% of the recommended N dose was supplied in form of NC-3, 1.18 fold yield enhancement was found. Thus our results highlight that, slow-release NC-3 can play a major role in increasing the NUE of rice.

In this work, the ammonium-tolerant duckweed Landoltia punctata 0202 was used to study the effect of ammonium stress on carbon and nitrogen metabolism and elucidate the detoxification mechanism. The growth status, protein and starch content, and activity of nitrogen assimilation enzymes were determined, and the transcriptional levels of genes involved in ion transport and carbon and nitrogen metabolism were investigated. Under high ammonium stress, the duckweed growth was inhibited, especially when ammonium was the sole nitrogen source. Ammonium might mainly enter cells via low-affinity transporters. The stimulation of potassium transport genes suggested sufficient potassium acquisition, precluding cation deficiency. In addition, the up-regulation of ammonium assimilation and transamination indicated that excess ammonium could be incorporated into organic nitrogen. Furthermore, the starch content increased from 3.97% to 16.43% and 26.02% in the mixed-nitrogen and ammonium-nitrogen groups, respectively. And the up-regulated starch synthesis, degradation, and glycolysis processes indicated that the accumulated starch could provide sufficient carbon skeletons for excess ammonium assimilation. The findings of this study illustrated that the coordination of carbon and nitrogen metabolism played a vital role in the ammonium detoxification mechanism of duckweeds.

We investigated the ability of the aquatic fern Azolla to take up ciprofloxacin (Cipro), as well as the effects of that antibiotic on the N-fixing process in plants grown in medium deprived (-N) or provided (+N) with nitrogen (N). Azolla was seen to accumulate Cipro at concentrations greater than 160 μg g⁻¹ dry weight when cultivated in 3.05 mg Cipro l⁻¹, indicating it as a candidate for Cipro recovery from water. Although Cipro was not seen to interfere with the heterocyst/vegetative cell ratios, the antibiotic promoted changes with carbon and nitrogen metabolism in plants. Decreased photosynthesis and nitrogenase activity, and altered plant's amino acid profile, with decreases in cell N concentrations, were observed. The removal of N from the growth medium accentuated the deleterious effects of Cipro, resulting in lower photosynthesis, N-fixation, and assimilation rates, and increased hydrogen peroxide accumulation. Our results shown that Cipro may constrain the use of Azolla as a biofertilizer species due to its interference with nitrogen fixation processes.

Heavy metal contamination of soil in the vicinity of mining sites is a serious environmental problem around the world when mining residue (slag) is dispersed as dust. We conducted an incubation experiment to investigate the effect of a slag containing high levels of Pb and Zn (62.2 and 33.6 g kg⁻¹ slag as PbO and ZnO, respectively, sampled from a site formerly used as a lead and zinc mine) on the nitrogen cycle when mixed with soil (0–0.048 g slag g⁻¹ soil). The nitrogen cycle provides many life supporting-functions. To assess the quality of the soil in terms of the nitrogen cycle we focused on the dynamics of nitrate and ammonium, and bacterial community structure and functions within the soil. After two weeks of pre-incubation, ¹⁵N-labeled urea (500 mg N kg⁻¹) was added to the soil. Changes in soil pH, the concentration and ¹⁵N ratio of nitrate (NO₃⁻-N) and ammonium, and bacterial relative abundance and community structure were measured. Results indicated that increasing the ratio of slag to soil had a stronger negative effect on nitrification than ammonification, as suggested by slower nitrate accumulation rates as the slag:soil ratio increased. In the treatment with the highest amount of slag, the concentration of NO₃⁻-N was 50% of that in the controls at the end of the incubation. Regarding the bacterial community, Firmicutes had a positive and Planctomycetes a negative correlation with increasing slag concentration. Bacterial community functional analysis showed the proportion of bacterial DNA sequences related to nitrogen metabolism was depressed with increasing slag, from 0.68 to 0.65. We concluded that the slag impacted the soil bacterial community structure, and consequently influenced nitrogen dynamics. This study could form the basis of further investigation into the resistance of the nitrogen cycle to contamination in relation to soil bacterial community.

Biochemical oxidation and reduction are key processes in treating biological wastewater and they require the presence of electron acceptors. The functional impact of electron acceptors on microbiomes provides strategies for improving the treatment efficiency. This research focused on two of the most important electron acceptors, nitrate and oxygen. Molecule ecological network, null model, and functional prediction based on high-throughput sequencing were used to analyze the microbiomes features and assembly mechanism. The results revealed nitrate via the homogeneous selection (74.0%) decreased species diversity, while oxygen via the homogeneous selection (51.1%) and dispersal limitation (29.6%) increased the complexity of community structure. Microbes that were more strongly homogeneously selected for assembly included polyphosphate accumulating organisms (PAOs), such as Pseudomonas and variovorax in the nitrate impacted community; Pseudomonas, Candidatus_Accumulibacter, Thermomonas and Dechloromonas, in the oxygen impacted community. Nitrate simplified species interaction and increased the abundance of functional genes involving in tricarboxylic acid cycle (TCA cycle), electron transfer, nitrogen metabolism, and membrane transport. These findings contribute to our knowledge of assembly process and interactions among microorganisms and lay a theoretical basis for future microbial regulation strategies in wastewater treatment.

Contamination of soil with heavy metals seriously harms the growth of crops. Silicon fertilizer is known to promote growth of crops and alleviate heavy metals stresses in vegetables. However, little is known about the effects of silicon fertilizer on pakchoi vegetable growth and soil microbial community in soil contaminated with multiple heavy metals. In order to elucidate this question, current study was designed to analyze the impact of different silicon fertilizer doses on the growth of pakchoi, heavy metals accumulation in pakchoi, and diversity and composition of bacterial community in heavy metals contaminated soil. Results of the study showed that, silicon fertilizer application significantly improved the yield of pakchoi and reduced the content of heavy metals in pakchoi. Moreover, the silicon fertilizer led to the heterogeneity of bacterial community structure in soil. Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) effect size (LEfSe) test showed the change of soil bacterial community structures under the higher silicon fertilizer doses (0.8–3.2%). Similarly, soil bacteria associated with heavy metal resistance and carbon/nitrogen metabolism showed a more active response to medium fertilizer dose (0.8% w/w). In addition, Mantel test and Redundancy analysis (RDA) showed that both the soil bacterial community structures and pakchoi growth were significantly correlated with soil EC, available K and pH. Study suggested that the application of silicon fertilizer provided richer bacteria associated with heavy metal resistance and plant growth, and more favorable soil physicochemical environment for the growth of pakchoi under multiple heavy metal contamination, and the impact was dependent on fertilizing dose.

Macrophytes are known to bioaccumulate metals, but a thorough understanding of tolerance strategies and molecular impact of metals in aquatic plants is still lacking. The present study aimed to compare Hg and Cd effects in a representative macrophyte, Elodea nuttallii using physiological endpoints and metabolite profiles in shoots and cytosol.Exposure 24 h to methyl-Hg (30 ng L⁻¹), inorganic Hg (70 ng L⁻¹) and Cd (280 μg L⁻¹) did not affect photosynthesis, or antioxidant enzymes despite the significant accumulation of metals, confirming a sublethal stress level. In shoots, Cd resulted in a higher level of regulation of metabolites than MeHg, while MeHg resulted in the largest number of regulated metabolites and IHg treatment regulated no metabolites significantly. In cytosol, Cd regulated more metabolites than IHg and only arginine, histidine and mannose were reduced by MeHg exposure. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analysis of data suggested that exposure to MeHg resulted in biochemical changes including aminoacyl-tRNA biosynthesis, glycine, serine and threonine metabolism, nitrogen metabolism, arginine and proline metabolism, cyanoamino acid metabolism, while the treatment of Cd stress caused significant variations in aminoacyl-tRNA biosynthesis and branched-chain amino acids pathways. Data supports an impact of MeHg on N homeostasis, while Cd resulted in an osmotic stress-like pattern and IHg had a low impact. Marked differences in the responses to MeHg and IHg exposure were evidenced, supporting different molecular toxicity pathways and main impact of MeHg on non-soluble compartment, while main impact of IHg was on soluble compartment. Metabolomics was used for the first time in this species and proved to be very useful to confirm and complement recent knowledge gained by transcriptomics and proteomics, highlighting the high interest of multi-omics approaches to identify early impact of environmental pollution.

Anthropogenic activity-mediated nutrient pollution, especially nitrogen enrichment, poses one of the major threats to river ecosystems. However, it remains unclear how and to which extent it affects aquatic microbial communities, especially in heavily polluted rivers. In this study, a significant environmental gradient, particularly nitrogen gradient, was observed along a wastewater receiving river, the North Canal River (NCR). The pollution level was highest, moderate, and lowest in the up-, middle, and down-streams, respectively. The community composition of bacterioplankton transitioned from being Betaproteobacteria-dominated upstream to Gammaproteobacteria-dominated downstream. Copiotrophic groups, such as Polynucleobacter (Betaproteobacteria) and Hydrogenophaga (Betaproteobacteria), were dominant in the upstream. Multiple statistical analyses indicated that total nitrogen (TN) was the most important factor driving the adaptive shifts of community structure. Analyses of co-occurrence networks showed that the complexity of networks was disrupted in the up- and middle streams, while enhanced in the downstream. Our findings here suggested that microbial interactions were reduced in response to the aggravation of nutrient pollution. Similar to these changes, we observed significant dissimilarity of composition of functional groups, with highest abundance of nitrogen metabolism members under the highest level of nitrogen enrichment. Further analyses indicated that most of these functional groups belonged to Betaproteobacteria, suggesting the potential coupling of community composition and function diversity. In summary, adaptive shifts of bacterioplankton community composition, as well as species interactions, occurred in response to nutrient pollution in highly polluted water bodies.

Sclerotinia stem rot (SSR), a soil-borne plant disease, cause the yield loss of oilseed rape. Selenium (Se), a beneficial element of plant, improves plant resistance to pathogens, and regulates microbial communities in soil. Soil microbial communities has been identified to play an important role in plant health. We studied whether the changes in soil microbiome under influence of Se associated with oilseed rape health. SSR disease incidence of oilseed rape and soil biochemical properties were investigated in Enshi district, “The World Capital of Selenium”, and soil bacterial and fungal communities were analyzed by 16S rRNA and ITS sequencing, respectively. Results showed that Se had a strong effect on SSR incidence, and disease incidence inversely related with plant Se concentration. Besides, soil Se enhanced the microbiome diversities and the relative abundance of PGPR (plant growth promoting rhizobacteria), such as Bryobacter, Nitrospirae, Rhizobiales, Xanthobacteraceae, Nitrosomonadaceae and Basidiomycota. Furthermore, Soil Se decreased the relative abundance of pathogenic fungi, such as Olpidium, Armillaria, Coniosporium, Microbotryomycetes and Chytridiomycetes. Additionally, Se increased nitrogen metabolism, carbohydrate metabolism and cell processes related functional profiles in soil. The enrichment of Se in plants and improvement of soil microbial community were related to increased plant resistance to pathogen infection. These findings suggested that Se has potential to be developed as an ecological fungicide for biological control of SSR.