Distinct bacterial community structure of 3 tropical volcanic soils from banana plantations contaminated with chlordecone in Guadeloupe (French West Indies)

• The importance to characterize soil bacterial diversity.
• Correlate bacterial diversity and physico-chemical characteristics.
• A new method for DNA recovery from the FWI allophatic andosol.
• Absence of correlation between soil bacterial diversity and chlordecone content.

In the French West Indies (FWI), the soil, andosols, ferralsols and nitisols, is highly polluted by chlordecone, although this organochlorine insecticide extensively applied to banana crops has been banned for 20 years. This contamination has led to a major human health concern inducing the need for remediation of the contaminated soils. Work was conducted to help to evaluate the impact of remediation processes on the microbial communities from these soils. Microbial biomass was estimated after direct DNA extraction from three chlordecone-contaminated soils (an andosol, a ferralsol and a nitisol) and the bacterial community analyzed using t-RFLP. The FWI volcanic andosol was particularly recalcitrant to usual direct DNA extraction protocols hampering analysis of soil microbial communities until now, in contrast with the 2 other soils. For the first time, DNA was directly extracted from a FWI andosol based on yeast RNA addition at the lysis step. Differences in microbial biomass were thus observed between the 3 FWI soils. Moreover, the bacterial community structure was significantly distinct from each other’s and related to soil physico-chemical characteristics. Interestingly, differences in bacterial diversity could not be exclusively attributed to the level of chlordecone contamination.