Influence of revegetation on soil microbial community and its assembly process in the open-pit mining area of the Loess Plateau, China

Abstract

Vegetation recovery is an important marker of ecosystem health in the mining area. Clarifying the influence of vegetation recovery on the characteristics of soil microbial community and its assembly process can improve our understanding of the ecological resilience and self-maintaining mechanism in the open-pit mining area. For this purpose, we employed MiSeq high-throughput sequencing coupled with null model analysis to determine the composition, molecular ecological network characteristics, key bacterial and fungal clusters, and the assembly mechanism of the soil microbial communities in shrubs (BL), coniferous forest (CF), broad-leaved forests (BF), mixed forest (MF), and the control plot (CK, the poplar plantation nearby that had been continuously grown for over 30 a without disturbance). The results showed that the vegetation restoration model had a significant influence on the α-diversity of the microbial community (p < 0.05). Compared with CK, Sobs and Shannon index of MF and CF have increased by 35.29, 3.50, and 25.18%, 1.05%, respectively, whereas there was no significant difference in the α-diversity of fungal community among different vegetation restoration types, Actinobacteria, Chloroflexi, Proteobacteria, and Acidobacteria were the dominant phyla. The diversity of the first two phyla was significantly higher than those of CK. However, the diversity of the last two phyla was dramatically lower than those of CK (p < 0.05). Ascomycota and Basidiomycota were dominant phyla in the fungal community. The abundance and diversity of Ascomycota were significantly higher than those of CK, while the abundance and diversity of the latter were considerably lower than those of CK (p < 0.05). The stochastic process governed the assembly of the soil microbial community, and the contribution rate to the bacterial community construction of CK, CF, BF, and MF was 100.0%. Except for MF, where the soil fungal community assembly was governed by the deterministic process, all other fungal communities were governed by the stochastic process. Proteobacteria and Acidobacteria are key taxa of the bacterial network, while Mortierellales, Thelebolales, Chaetothyriales, and Hypocreales are the key taxa of the fungal network. All these results might provide the theoretical foundation for restoring the fragile ecosystem in the global mining region.

Phosphorus addition increases stability and complexity of co-occurrence network of soil microbes in an artificial Leymus chinensis grassland

“…Basidiomycota and Mortierellomycota are closely related to soil pH, and phosphorus addition affects soil pH and thus abundance ( Deng et al, 2021 ; Tarin et al, 2021 ). Some studies have shown that Ascomycota can promote soil nutrient cycling ( Guo et al, 2020 ; Chang et al, 2022 ), this is in line with our findings that its abundance is positively correlated with soil nutrient content ( Figure 5B ). Glomeromycotans belong to a phylum of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi that promote nutrient uptake ( Spatafora et al, 2016 ; Wipf et al, 2019 ; Muneer et al, 2020 ).…”

A comparison of microbial composition under three tree ecosystems using the stochastic process and network complexity approaches

“…For example, the number of nodes and edges of soil microbial co-occurrence network gradually decreased with stand age, and the relationship between species gradually weakened ( Bi et al, 2021 ). And mixed forests tend to have more complex and stable network relationships than broad-leaved and coniferous forests ( Chang et al, 2022 ). It can be seen that soil nutrients play a decisive role in the process of forest degradation and succession or ecological restoration ( Liu et al, 2019 ).…”

Impacts of fertilization methods on Salvia miltiorrhiza quality and characteristics of the epiphytic microbial community

“…Acidobacteria species decreased in leaf sites, and Acidobacteria abundance was negatively correlated with nutrient content ( Fierer et al., 2007 ; Banerjee et al., 2016 ), which can promote the dissolution of soil inorganic P, and their abundance was significantly correlated with soil available P ( Flieder et al., 2021 ; Wu et al., 2021 ). Increased root Rhizobia , microorganisms that favor crop–microbe interactions, usually perform beneficial functions for the host by providing a variety of nutrients and metabolites ( Erlacher et al., 2015 ; Gazdag et al., 2018 ; Chang et al., 2022 ). Ascomycota was the most abundant phylum in the fungal network, and fertilization promoted the growth of Ascomycota ( Guo et al., 2020 ).…”