Influência de compostos xenobiontes na densidade, diversidade e função ecológica bacteriana de degradação do agrotóxico fipronil

Abstract

The actual agricultural production system requires the use of chemicals such as pesticides and antimicrobials. These compounds, when reach aquatic environments, can cause serious environmental problems and affect target and non-target organisms such as microorganisms, that play key ecological functions to the ecosystem functioning. So, the objectives of this study were: (i) to evaluate the bactericidal action of oxytetracycline (OTC) and fungicide imazalil (IMZ) on bacterial ecological function of pesticide fipronil degradation; (II) evaluate the effect of oxytetracycline on density and aquatic bacterial diversity; (III) to monitor changes in bacterial dynamics in the presence of fipronil. Water was sampled in Beija-Flor Reservoir for mounting the experiments. Microcosms were prepared in triplicates for six different treatments: water; water and OTC; water and IMZ; water and fipronil; water, fipronil and OTC; water, fipronil and IMZ. The microcosms were kept in the dark at 21oC. Samples were collected at 1, 5, 10, 20, 45 and 70 days of incubation. It was determined the water pH, the dissolved organic carbon (DOC), total nitrogen (TN), OTC and fipronil concentrations. Water samples from the microcosms were also used for bacterial density analysis by epifluorescence microscopy and diversity by DGGE band profiles analysis. The presence of OTC alone and especially mixed with IMZ affects bacterial diversity, but does not cause significant effect on fipronil degradation, suggesting the existence of functional redundancy among the individuals that formed the bacterial community. The oxytetracycline, at certain concentrations, promotes a bacterial density decrease and diversity increase, probably by mediating the coexistence of species as a result of the growth control of the best competitive bacteria. Fipronil may cause bacterial density increase but, concerning its diversity, initially in the experiment, it was reduced, comparing with the control samples. However, after 70 days, the diversity was similar, suggesting that the community was reestablished, leading us to consider that the community was resilient to the impact caused by fipronil.