Half-lives of PAHs and temporal microbiota changes in commonly used urban landscaping materials

Background: Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) accumulate in urban soils, and PAH contamination can change soil microbial community composition. Environmental microbiota is associated with human commensal microbiota, immune system and health. Therefore, studies investigating the degradation of PAHs, and the consequences of soil pollution on microbial communities in urban landscaping materials, are crucial.

Methods: Four landscaping materials (organic matter 1, 2, 13 and 56%) were contaminated with PAHs commonly found at urban sites (phenanthrene, fluoranthene, pyrene, chrysene and benzo(b)fluoranthene) in PAH concentrations that reflect urban soils in Finland (2.4 µg g ^-1 soil dry weight). PAHs were analyzed initially and after 2, 4, 8 and 12 weeks by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Half-lives of PAHs were determined based on 12-weeks degradation. Bacterial communities were analyzed at 1 and 12 weeks after contamination using Illumina MiSeq 16S rRNA gene metabarcoding.

Results: Half-lives ranged from 1.5 to 4.4 weeks for PAHs with relatively low molecular weights (phenanthrene, fluoranthene and pyrene) in landscaping materials containing 1-2% organic matter. In contrast, in materials containing 13% and 56% organic matter, the half-lives ranged from 2.5 to 52 weeks. Shorter half-lives of phenanthrene and fluoranthene were thus associated with low organic matter content. The half-life of pyrene was inversely related to the relative abundance of Beta-, Delta- and Gammaproteobacteria, and diversity of Bacteroidetes and Betaprotebacteria. Compounds with higher molecular weights followed compound-specific patterns. Benzo(b)fluoranthene was resistant to degradation and half-life of chrysene was shorter when the relative abundance of Betaproteobacteria was high. Temporal microbiota changes involved increase in the relative abundance of Deltaproteobacteria and decrease in genera Flavobacterium and Rhodanobacter. Exposure to PAHs seems to adjust microbial community composition, particularly within class Beta- and Deltaproteobacteria.

Conclusions: In this study, PAH degradation depended on the organic matter content and bacterial community composition of landscaping materials. Contamination seems to alter bacterial community composition in landscaping materials depending on material type. This alteration includes changes in bacterial phyla associated with human health and immune system. This may open new possibilities for managing urban environments by careful selection of landscaping materials, to benefit health and wellbeing.