The impact of ecological pressure caused by toxic lignin metabolites on microbial function transformation during...

Environmental stress coexists with microbial interactions during composting, temperature was thought to be the main stress, the toxic stress caused by aromatic compounds was often overlooked. Herein, lignin and lignin degradation products (LDP) were used alone or in combination to culture the compost microbial community, which manually delineated 32 niches to explore the effects of toxic stress on microbe and their responses. Results showed that the toxicity of LDP significantly changed the distribution of microbial community. Then, microorganisms were divided into three groups: specialist showed high diversity and low abundance, responsible for the metabolism of toxic macromolecules, with detoxification effect. Generalist exhibited high abundance and diversity, which mainly changed metabolic byproducts to cellular energy and sustaining the survival of microorganisms. Accordingly, these characteristics were the survival strategies of microbial communities to harmonize the toxic stress in different ecological niche. While the results of the lignin metabolic catalog have confirmed the metabolic tendency of different microorganism in the metabolic module. Finally, this study help to further understand microbe survival strategies in aromatic pollutants composting, which may be possible to accelerate or alter the composting process by manipulating the microbial community.