Tetracycline resistance genes are more prevalent in wet soils than in dry soils

This study aimed to reveal the effects of water content on the spread of tetracycline resistance genes (TRGs) in the soil. Amendments of four samples with different soil water contents, namely 16% (dry soil) and 25% (wet soil), and with or without pig manures (PM) were conducted under laboratory conditions. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction (q-PCR) results showed that the relative abundance of TRGs (tetB, tetC, tetM, tetO, tetT, and tetZ) in the wet soils was significantly higher than that in the dry soils whether under fertilization or non-fertilization conditions. Moreover, PM application enhanced the relative abundance of TRGs. The absolute copies of TRGs did not decline with the decrease in 16S rRNA genes in wet soils, implying that most TRGs were probably located in facultative anaerobic bacteria. However, cultivable tetracycline-resistant bacteria (TRB) in the wet soils were not in line with the q-PCR results, further indicating that aerobes might not account for the increases in the relative abundance of TRGs. Diversities of aerobic TRB were significantly higher in the wet soils than in the dry soils, especially on days 14 and 28. The patterns of community structures of aerobic TRB in the wet soils or dry soils containing PM were different from those in the dry soils. Together, this study showed that the variations in bacterial communities between the wet and dry soils, especially reflected in the diversity of aerobic TRB and/or community structure of facultative anaerobic TRB, might be an important reason behind the changes in the abundance of TRGs.