Abstract

PETENELLO, María Cristina; BELTRAN, Celina  and  FELDMAN, Susana Raquel. Effect of diesel-oil addition on soil microbiological parameters in systems with and without plants. Terra Latinoam [online]. 2014, vol.32, n.4, pp.301-309. ISSN 2395-8030.

Soils become frequently contaminated by industrial activity, fuel transport or leaking pipes and fuel storage tanks. Consequently, when these accidents occur there is a great risk that pollutants reach the water table. Among other techniques recommended to remediate contaminated soils, phytoremediation, a technique that includes the action of plants together with its associated microbes, is much recommended because of its low cost. In this particular experiment neither specially selected bacteria nor fertilizers were used, but only natural properties of plant-soil conditions. There are a series of biological properties of soils that can be employed to monitor a phytoremediation process. In this experiment soil respiration, soil microbial biomass and metabolic quotient were measured at two moments of the experiment (30 and 75 days). Seeds of Spartina argentinensis and Melilotus alba were sown in pots with soil previously contaminated with 1 and 2% diésel-oil, and the plants were maintained under greenhouse conditions. CO2 production increased in all diesel-oil treatments by the end of the experiment. Microbial biomass also increased only in the 1% diesel-oil treatment but not in the higher concentration, probably due to some toxic effect of 2% diesel-oil on microorganisms. Consequently, stress caused by the higher contaminant concentration resulted in a greater qCO2. The importance of the evaluated parameters is that they allow knowledge of how soil microbial communities respond to the presence of diesel-oil.

Keywords : metabolic quotient; microbial biomass; phytoremediation; respirometry.

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