Ecological distribution, dissemination potential, and health risks of antibiotic resistance genes and mobile genetic elements in soils across diverse land-use types in China.

Antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) have emerged as critical environmental contaminants, while mobile genetic elements (MGEs) act as key vectors facilitating their horizontal transfer, collectively posing growing challenges to ecosystem and public health. This study presents a comprehensive metagenomic investigation of ARGs and MGEs across 180 soil samples from five major land use types in China: farmland, forest, grassland, urban planting, and bare land. Among 862 identified ARG subtypes, 28 were detected in over 95 % of samples, indicating the presence of ecologically dominant and widely disseminated resistance elements. By integrating taxonomic profiling, metagenomic assembly, and multiple statistical methods-including Kruskal-Wallis testing, redundancy analysis (RDA), PERMANOVA, and co-occurrence network analysis-we revealed distinct distributional patterns and ecological associations of ARGs and MGEs across land use gradients. Forest and agricultural soils exhibited higher ARG diversity and abundance, while urban and barren soils showed reduced resistome complexity. Network analysis identified key ARG-MGE co-occurrence modules and hub elements that may promote horizontal gene transfer, particularly under anthropogenic disturbance. Taxonomic annotation highlighted Actinomycetota and Pseudomonadota as dominant ARG hosts. A multi-indicator health risk framework incorporating environmental prevalence, gene mobility, and host pathogenicity classified 267 ARG subtypes as posing medium to high potential risks. These findings enhance our understanding of land use-mediated ARG dissemination and provide a scientific basis for targeted environmental monitoring and mitigation strategies.