Effect of soil pollution on bacterial resistance to lead ions: an experimental approach

The objective of the laboratory experiment was to study the resistance to lead ions of bacteria isolated from soil with various level of contamination with this element. Lead (II) acetate trihydrate was applied to the soil (sandy loam) in two doses so that the total content of lead corresponded to weak (250 mg kg⁻¹) and strong (5000 mg kg⁻¹) contamination of soil with lead. From each of the soil (control, weakly and strongly contaminated soil) bacterial isolates were obtained and several dozen of them were randomly chosen for the experiment. The isolates were severally point wise cultured in three repetitions onto microbiological medium contaminated with lead (1000 mg dm⁻³) and on the same control medium. The diameter of grown “twin” colonies in both cultures were compared. For each isolate separately the resistance index (RI) was described as a ratio of bacterial cultures diameter of the soil isolate cultured on the contaminated medium to the diameter of the same isolate cultured on the control medium. On the basis of the various RI results, the bacteria were divided into four resistance groups (RG) of approximate resistance index: I group, RI = 0 – entirely sensitive bacteria (no growth on the contaminated medium); II group 0