The influence of soil environmental fac-tors such as aeration on the ecology of microorganisms involved in the mineralization and degradation of thepopular soil-applied pre-emergent herbicide, meto-lachlor is unknown. To address this knowledge gap,we utilized DNA-based stable isotope probing (SIP)where soil microcosms were incubated aerobically oranaerobically and received herbicide treatments withunlabeled metolachlor or13C-metolachlor. Mineral-ization of metolachlor was confirmed as noted fromthe evolution of14CO2from14C-metolachlor-treatedmicrocosms and clearly demonstrated the efficient and enabled the identification of organisms responsi-ble for metolachlor uptake from the soil. Subsequentcloning and 16S rRNA gene sequencing of the13C-enriched fractions implicated the role of organismsclosely related toBacillusspp. in aerobic mineraliza-tion and members ofAcidobacteriaphylum in anaer-obic mineralization of metolachlor in soil

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• Identification of metolachlor mineralizing bacteriain aerobic and anaerobic soils using DNA-stable isotope probing