IHSS&IWA26 / BRNO / CZECHIA / 23–28 August 2026 BOOK OF ABSTRACTS 220 Poster Session / Environment, Agriculture, and Forestry Hall A P4.4 Now You See Me, Now You Don’t: Polymer Degradation in Soil Pavlina Guziurova1, Vladimira Krempska2, Petr Hales3, Martin Sukenik3, Petr Sedlacek3, Stanislav Obruca1 1 Institute of Food Science and Biotechnology, Faculty of Chemistry, Brno University of Technology, Purkynova 464/118, 612 00 Brno, Czechia, Pavlina.Guziurova@vut.cz 2 Department of Biology and Environmental Studies, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Matej Bel University, Tajovskeho 40, 974 01 Banska Bystrica, Slovakia 3 Institute of Physical and Applied Chemistry, Faculty of Chemistry, Brno University of Technology, Purkynova 464/118, 612 00 Brno, Czechia Biodegradable polymer mulching films are incerasingly promoted as a suitanable alternative to conventional plastics, yet their actual degradation pathways, the accumulation of persistent plastic residues in agricultural soils and interactions with soil microbiota remain still insufficiently understood. This study investigaes the fate of biodegradable polymers fragemnts (as a model of mulchingfoil residues), focusing on polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB), and polylactic acid (PLA) and using the degradradation product (e.g. lactic acid and 3-hydroxybutyrate). The main aim is to see the influence on the soil and microbial properties and to produce new PHA via microbial consortium in soil. Polymer fragments of mulching foils were incubated in agricultural soil to approximate field exposure conditions. Following incubation, residual materials were recovered via density separation and characterized using physicochemical methods to examine potential changes in their properties. Soilderived bacterial communities were cultivated to assess their ability to produce intracellular polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA), and polymer biosynthesis was verified using FTIR and gas chromatography, which enabled the detection of PHA. Our results suggest that soil microorganisms play a dual role: not only contribute to the degradation of biodegradable mulching materials but they may also synthesize biopolyesters from available carbon sources under suitable conditions. These findings highlight soil as an active dynamic bioreactor govering polymer transformation, and they point toward the potential – though not yet fully verified – role of biodegradable mulching materials. Acknowledgement The study was funded by the Czech Science Foundation (GAČR), project No. GA25-18143S
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