Veterinary antibiotics at environmentally relevant concentrations inhibit soil iron reduction and nitrification

Veterinary antibiotics used in food animal production, subsequently entering the agroecosystem through land application of animal manure, constitute a growing concern. Previous studies have reported inhibitory effects of antibiotics on soil microbial activities, however, treatment concentrations in these studies were often many times greater than the ranges typically found in the environment. When spiked into manure and mixed with soil at environmentally relevant concentrations in a laboratory study, sulfadimethoxine and monensin blocked soil iron reduction over periods extending from a few days to the entire 50-Day experiment. Sulfadimethoxine also had an inhibitory effect on soil nitrification periodically over the course of the study. Respiration and community-level physiological profile parameters were not inhibited by sulfadimethoxine, monensin, or chlortetracycline. We conclude that antibiotics at environmentally relevant concentrations can disrupt soil microbial processes, although the detection of such impact may be antibiotic and/or process specific.