ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Interactive Effect of Radioactive and Heavy-Metal Contamination on Soil Enzyme Activity in a Former Uranium Mine
Gang Yang1, Faqin Dong2, Mingxue Liu1, Xiaoqin Nie4, Meirong Zong3, Changhui Peng6, Huai Chen5, Hongfu Wei1, Pingping Wang2, Wei Zhang2
 
More details
Hide details
 
1School of Life Science and Engineering, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang 621010, China
2Key Laboratory of Solid Waste Treatment and Resource Recycling, Ministry of Education,
Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang 621010, China
3School of Earth Science and Engineering, Nanjing Univiersity, Nanjing 210023, China
4Fundamental Science on Nuclear Wastes and Environmental Safety Laboratory-Collaborative Innovation Center
of Nuclear Wastes and Environmental Safety, Southwest University of Science and Technology
5CAS Key Laboratory of Mountain Ecological Restoration and Bioresources Utilization and Ecological Restoration
Biodiversity Conservation Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Chengdu Institute of Biology,
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu 610041, China
6Center of CEF/ESCER, Department of Biological Science, University of Quebec at Montreal,
Montreal H3C 3P8, Canada
 
 
Submission date: 2017-06-11
 
 
Final revision date: 2017-07-24
 
 
Acceptance date: 2017-07-31
 
 
Online publication date: 2018-02-05
 
 
Publication date: 2018-03-12
 
 
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2018;27(3):1343-1351
 
KEYWORDS
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
Radioactivity and heavy metal toxicity of multi-metal deposits coexisting with the element uranium (U) could have long-term adverse impacts on soil biological processes and the health of soil ecosystems. Soil enzyme activities are considered bioindicators for assessing soil health. An experiment was designed to investigate invertase and ß-glucosidase activity in multi-metal deposits. Radioactivity and heavy metals were also investigated during this study. Our results showed that the invertase and ß-glucosidase activities were significantly lower in the core mining area than the control area (p<0.05). Activities of the two enzymes decreased with increasing metal concentrations and radioactivity. Cu and Zn showed significant negative effects on ß-glucosidase and invertase activities in a multi-metal deposit at the study site. A significant nonlinear relationship was recorded between soil enzyme activities, radiation dose (R2 = 0.71, 0.63; p<0.05), Zn (R2 = 0.34, 0.41; p<0.05) and Cu concentrations (R2 = 0.46, 0.45; p<0.05). There were turning points at 1 μGy h-1, 250 μg g-1, and 30 μg g-1 for radiation dose, Zn and Cu contents, respectively. The findings could provide more information regarding the toxic effects of radiation and heavy metals on the soil health of multi-metal deposits, which can more precisely guide environmental protection.
CONFLICT OF 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.
 
CITATIONS (7):
1.
Surface interaction between metazeunerite and an indigenous microorganism Kocuria rosea: Implications for bioremediation of As-U tailings
Lei Zhou, Faqin Dong, Hailong Li, Tingting Huo, Pingping Wang, Mingxue Liu, Gang Yang, Wei Zhang, Wenyuan Hu, Xiaoqin Nie, Huichao He, Bowen Li, Ray L. Frost
Chemical Engineering Journal
 
2.
Effect of low-molecular-weight chiral organic acids on bentonite adsorption and mineralization of coexisting MXn+ (UO22+, Pb2+, Zn2+, Cr2+) ions
Xin Xie, Liang Bian, Jianan Nie, Faqin Dong, Mianxin Song, Guocheng Lv, Fei Wang, Xiaobin Gu, Peng Zhang, Qing Song, Jingjie Yang
Surfaces and Interfaces
 
3.
Speciation Distribution of Heavy Metals in Uranium Mining Impacted Soils and Impact on Bacterial Community Revealed by High-Throughput Sequencing
Shiqi Xiao, Qian Zhang, Xiaoming Chen, Faqin Dong, Hao Chen, Mingxue Liu, Imran Ali
Frontiers in Microbiology
 
4.
Heavy Metals/Metalloids in Soil of a Uranium Tailings Pond in Northwest China: Distribution and Relationship with Soil Physicochemical Properties and Radionuclides
Yu Mao, Jinlong Yong, Qian Liu, Baoshan Wu, Henglei Chen, Youhua Hu, Guangwen Feng
Sustainability
 
5.
Ecological Interplays in Microbial Enzymology
Auwalu Hassan, Fauziah Shahul Hamid, Helen Shnada Auta, Agamuthu Pariatamby, Innocent C. Ossai, Jayanthi Barasarathi, Aziz Ahmed
 
6.
The effects of uranium stress on physiological indicators, soil microorganisms, and enzyme activity of Sorghum sudanense
H. Yuan, X. Qiao, W. Gong, S. Cao
International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology
 
7.
Occurrence characteristics of uranium mineral-related substances in various environmental media in China: A critical review
Bei Zhao, Zhanxue Sun, Yadan Guo, Zhongkui Zhou, Xuegang Wang, Pingchao Ke
Journal of Hazardous Materials
 
eISSN:2083-5906
ISSN:1230-1485
Journals System - logo
Scroll to top