The behavior of antibiotic resistance genes and their associations with bacterial community during poultry manure composting
Authors: Xiuna Ren
Shivpal Verma
Zengqiang Zhang
Quan Wang
Junchao Zhao
Sanjeev Kumar Awasthi
Hongyu Chen
Tao Liu
Yumin Duan
Mukesh Kumar Awasthi
Journal: Bioresource Technology (2019)
Discipline: BIOLOGY & BIOCHEMISTRY
Keywords: Antibiotic resistant genes; Composting; Physicochemical properties; Poultry manure; Relative abundance.
Affiliations: College of Natural Resources and Environment, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi Province 712100, China., College of Natural Resources and Environment, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi Province 712100, China. Electronic address: .

Abstract:  In this paper, the influence of clay amendment on antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) fate and their relation with bacterial diversity in poultry manure (PM) composting was evaluated. The results confirmed that 4% clay amendment was significantly reduce the relative abundances (RAs) 94% of ARGs, while higher dosage of clay blended treatments (T5 and T6) composts were observed relatively very high percentage of ARGs as compared to other clay blended treatments. Clay addition play potential role on the occurrence and distribution of ARGs during the composting by altering the overall RAs of Firmicutes and Proteobacteria, and there host bacterial species. The heat map correlation figure also indicated that reduction of ARGs was significantly associated with the alteration of microbial dynamics and physicochemical parameters during the composting. Therefore, the addition of 4% clay in to PM composting system could efficiently mitigate the greater concentration of ARGs in PM compost and also environmental risk associated with its application. 

Retracted: No

PubPeer comments:
 Dear Authors,] I am wondering what happened with English editing of your abstract? Had you read and corrected your galley proof? It seems that not at all. I am quite amazed that the Journal did not check the text. When I see something like that already in the abstract, I start to anticipate the same quality inside the entire text... let alone to share and cite it. , 
 It seems that there were no English editors in the Journal, at least the ones working with due diligence at the time when the article was being prepared for publication. Apparently the journal, aiming to advance and disseminate knowledge in all the related areas of biomass, biological waste treatment etc., resorted to a rather u201cnovelu201d writing style, which is evidenced already by the abstract to this article. Would anyone wish to cite something like u201cThe results confirmed that u2026clay amendment was significantly reduce the relative abundances (RAs) 94% of ARGs, while higher dosage of clay blended treatments (T5 and T6) composts were observed relatively very high percentage of ARGs as compared to other clay blended treatmentsu201d. Or:u201d Clay addition play potential role on the occurrence and distribution of ARGs during the composting by altering the overall RAs of Firmicutes and Proteobacteria, and there host bacterial speciesu201d. Such negligent attitude to the abstract (and it is the most readable section of an article!) makes me think that the main text will be even richer in similar examples, to say nothing about performing experiments, processing the data and interpreting the obtained results. Cannot help but wondering about the high IF of the journal, but thenu2026 well, one can cite such articles as negative examples! ,