Response of soil enzymes, functional bacterial groups, and microbial communities exposed to sudan I-IV

As an important type of typical synthetic azo dyes, the use of sudan I-IV dyes has been of concern worldwide because of their wide applications and illegal addition into various foodstuffs, potentially resulting in water and soil pollution and having adverse effects on human health and ecosystems. However, to date, little has been reported regarding the environmental levels of these dyes and the risks that they pose to human health and ecosystems. Understanding the responses of soil enzymes, functional groups of bacteria and microbial communities to sudan dyes is of great importance to reveal their effect on the soil environment. In this study, we performed a toxicological study on the specific and overall effects of sudan I-IV dyes on the activity of soil enzymes including catalase, urease, and alkaline phosphatase after a 2- and 7-day exposure, functional groups of soil bacteria including nitrogen-fixing, ammonia-oxidizing, and denitrifying bacteria on day 14, and the structure and diversity of soil microbial community compositions on day 30. The results showed that sudan I-IV affected the activity of the soil enzymes, the abundance of the bacterium functional groups, and the structure and diversity of microbial community compositions, and the effects varied by sudan dyes I-IV, the exposure concentration, and the exposure time.