Soil Properties and Species Richness of Invertebrates on Afforested Sites after Brown Coal Mining

Abstract

Variation in soil properties may influence diversity of invertebrate communities, a crucial component of every ecosystem, and their impact should be considered also in restoration management. Although most spoil heaps have been reclaimed after brown coal mining, some post-mining sites are left to natural succession. Little is known, however, about the effects of these two fundamentally different approaches on diversity of invertebrates inhabiting these stands. While controlling for habitat characteristics, we analyzed the effects of soil properties on species richness of seven invertebrate groups representing various trophic levels and diverse spatial niches at afforested spoil heaps and adjacent pits managed under these two basic restoration approaches in the North Bohemia Brown Coal Basin (Czech Republic, central Europe). Forty-seven percentage of 140 invertebrate species occurred on both reclamations and successions, but many were found exclusively on successions (37%) or reclamations (16%). The species richness of various groups was affected by different soil properties either independently of other variables or in interaction with microclimatic conditions or management history. These results imply a need for diverse management approaches in post-mining areas to support the diversity of invertebrate communities. Technical reclamations with artificial plantations and spontaneous forest development on bare substrate (thus creating mosaics of open patches and afforested stands with different soil deposit materials) were found to be reasonable alternatives to support invertebrate richness on post-mining forested stands. We conclude that these two approaches should properly be combined in practice.

Vegetation and Soil Properties Recovery, Biomass Accumulation after Limestone Quarry Restoration

“…In south western Virginia for example, although the research by [5] recorded increases in pioneer native species in nurse-trees reclaimed coal mines, the study did not report a corresponding increase in intermediate and late succession trees or shrubs species in same area. Similar conflicting findings were reported by [6] and [7].…”

Spontaneous succession on opencast mining sites: implications for bird biodiversity

“…; Hendrychová et al . ). This gives early successional specialists recruited from vascular plants, various groups of arthropods as well as birds the opportunity to appear and to use these sites as habitat refuges within human‐altered landscapes.…”

“…, ; Hendrychová et al . ). On the other hand, similar studies focused on vertebrates such as birds are rare (Karr ; Bejček & Šťastný ) and the differences between the communities of these animals on spontaneously developed and technically reclaimed sites are poorly documented.…”

Initial conditions during Technosol implementation shape earthworms and ants diversity

“…In fact, we observed a significant relationship between age and abundance/density only in Technosols with the initial input of topsoil, an example of the importance of Technosols initial conditions for both ants and earthworms (H2). As proposed by the conceptual framework of soil colonization by soil organisms and soil formation (Jenny, 1994), a positive effect of time on abundance/density has been previously documented in post-mining reclamation sites (Hendrychová,Šálek, Tajovský, &Řehoř, 2012;Hlava & Kopecký, 2013) and urban areas (Brown, Miller, Brewster, & Fell, 2013;Buczkowski & Richmond, 2012;Smetak et al, 2007). However, those studies did not strictly investigate the effect of initial conditions which could profoundly change the trajectories of soil formation.…”