An Improved Bibliometric Analysis on Antibiotics in Soil Research

Antibiotic compounds can enter the environment and eventually into drinking water, when manure containing non-metabolized antibiotic residues is applied to agricultural land. In this study, the publication data was analyzed from the aspects of countries, subject categories and keywords during the period of 1946–2016 from Web of Science. The results indicated that, during the period of 2004–2016, the United States, followed by China, dominated the publication of antibiotics in soil. Three most representative subject categories were “Microbiology”, “Environmental science and ecology” and “Chemistry”. The most studied antibiotic was tetracycline. Antibiotic resistance bacteria (ARB) and antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) with the fate and transport mechanisms such as degradation, adsorption and desorption were the hot research topics in this field. This study suggests that research on ARB, ARGs and antibiotics in soil should be paid more attention in the future research.