SPECIES VARIATION AND PLASMID INCIDENCE AMONG FLUORESCENT PSEUDOMONAS STRAINS ISOLATED FROM AGRICULTURAL AND INDUSTRIAL SOILS

A total of 132 different fluorescent Pseudomonas strains were isolated from several agricultural and industrial soils. The bacteria from the two different soil environments were compared for species and biotype variation, antibiotic and heavy metal resistance profiles, ability to degrade polyaromatic hydrocarbons, and plasmid incidence. Irrespective of the soil type, the isolates belonged to Pseudomonas fluorescens biotypes I-VI and Pseudomonas putida biotype B. Except for a streptomycin resistant isolate from one of the industrial soils, all the strains had the same antibiotic resistance profile. However, there was a higher incidence of heavy metal resistance and polyaromatic hydrocarbon degradation phenotypes in the isolates from industrial soils than from the agricultural soils. only 2 out of 68 strains from agricultural soil were found to carry plasmids, while 28 out of 64 strains from industrial soil had plasmids. A majority of the plasmids (56%) were estimated to be larger than 50 kb, indicating that they could encode transfer functions. However, transferability as indicated by the ability to mobilize an IncQ plasmid (tra(-), mob(+)), was observed with only one plasmid. None of the plasmid(s) containing isolates hybridized to a P-32-labelled repP probe suggesting that none of the indigenous plasmids in the soil fluorescent Pseudomonas strains was related to the IncP group of conjugative plasmids commonly associated with resistance and catabolic genes.