This study investigates the dynamics of pyrene degradation rates, microbial communities, and functional gene copy numbers during the incubation of pyrene-spiked soils. Spiking pyrene to the soil was found to have negligible effects on the bacterial community present. Our results demonstrated that there a significant difference in nidA gene copy numbers between sampling dates in QZ soil.

rDNA clone libraries  showed that more than 90% mycobacteria detected were growing PAH-degrading Mycobacterium in pyrene-spiked soil, while other growing Mycobacterium  were only detected in the control soil. It is number and fast-growing PAH-degrading Mycobacterium could be used as indicators to contamination and its degradation activity in soils.