| Summary: | Most of the research on bioremediation and estimation of microbial diversity in waste contaminated sites is focused on the domain <i>Bacteria</i>, whereas details on the relevance of <i>Archaea</i> are still lacking. The present study examined the archaeal diversity and predicted metabolic pathways in two discrete sites (SITE1 and SITE2) contaminated with explosives (RDX and HMX) by amplicon-targeted sequencing of 16S rRNA genes. In total, 14 soil samples were processed, and 35,758 OTUs were observed, among which 981 OTUs were classified as <i>Archaea</i>, representing ~2.7% of the total microbial diversity in our samples. The majority of OTUs belonged to phyla <i>Euryarchaeota</i> (~49%), <i>Crenarchaeota</i> (~24%), and <i>Thaumarchaeota</i> (~23%), while the remaining (~4%) OTUs were affiliated to <i>Candidatus</i> Parvarchaeota, <i>Candidatus</i> Aenigmarchaeota, and <i>Candidatus</i> Diapherotrites. The comparative studies between explosives contaminated and agricultural soil samples (with no history of explosives contamination) displayed significant differences between the compositions of the archaeal communities. Further, the metabolic pathways pertaining to xenobiotic degradation were presumably more abundant in the contaminated sites. Our data provide a first comprehensive report of archaeal communities in explosives contaminated sites and their putative degradation role in such ecosystems which have been as yet unexplored.
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