Abstract
Olive oil industry is economically important in Mediterranean countries. Disposal of olive mill waste (OMW) presents an environmental concern in those countries due to its high salinity and its high level of polyphenols. In order to reuse OMW, those properties have to change either through the filtration process and addition of adsorbents or by composting. One of the most important organisms in composting of organic wastes is earthworms. However, data on the effects of OMW on earthworms are scarce. The main aim of our study was to investigate whether OMW contaminated soil (OMW CS) causes adverse effects on molecular and organism level in epigeic earthworm Dendrobaena veneta and on microbiological activity. Changes of measured biochemical biomarkers (AChE, CAT, GST, lipids, MDA) varied depending on the quantity of added OMW CS and the exposure duration. Oxidative stress occurred after 7 days of exposure, while in most cases enzyme activity recovered after 28 days. At the highest ratio of contaminated soil (50%), reproduction was completely inhibited. The second aim was to investigate the impact of earthworms on phenol degradation and microbial activity, indicating an important role in the bioremediation of contaminated soils. Our results show that above a certain quantity an OMW CS has an adverse effect on earthworms, while the impact of earthworms on soil microbial activity was positive but transient. Yet, as the results also imply that earthworms have an impact on phenol degradation, they can be used to help remediation of OMW CS and its subsequent usage in agriculture. However, the quantity of OMW CS that can be safely added should be determined first.
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Acknowledgements
This research was conducted in the framework of the DEFENSoil project (Diverse Effects of Environmentally Relevant Metal-based Nanoparticle and Pesticide Mixtures on Soil Fauna: A Novel Issue for Risk Assessment) financed by the Croatian Science Foundation (HrZZ) (contract number: IP-09-2014-4459). We are grateful to the members of the Subdepartment of Quantitative Ecology who supported our work.
Funding
This research was financially supported through DEFENSoil project (Diverse Effects of Environmentally Relevant Metal-based Nanoparticle and Pesticide Mixtures on Soil Fauna: A Novel Issue for Risk Assessment) financed by the Croatian Science Foundation (HrZZ) (contract number: IP-09–2014-4459).
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Resource acquisition, funding and visualization were performed by ST, AK and BKH. The investigation and formal analysis were performed by ST, DKH, MK, NS and GP. The first draft of the manuscript was written by ST, MK and NS, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Highlights
• Responses of biomarkers were correlated with exposure time and OMW CS ratio.
• The highest applied dose of OMW CS (50%) prevented reproduction of D. veneta.
• A change in soil microbial activity indicated a transient stimulatory effect by earthworms.
• Earthworms stimulated a degradation of phenolic compounds.
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Trigui, S., Hackenberger, D.K., Kovačević, M. et al. Effects of olive mill waste (OMW) contaminated soil on biochemical biomarkers and reproduction of Dendrobaena veneta. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 24956–24967 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-17593-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-17593-1