Response of Soil Microbial Community to Vegetation Reconstruction Modes in Mining Areas of the Loess Plateau, China

Vegetation reconstruction and restoration is vital to the health of the mine land ecosystem. Different vegetations might change microbial community structure and function of soil, mediating the biogeochemical cycle and nutrition supply to the soil. To clarify the response of soil microbes to different vegetation reconstruction modes in the mining areas of the Loess Plateau, China, soil microbial community structures and functions were determined by the MiSeq high-throughput sequencing along with PICRUSt2 and FUNGuild tools. The fungal community richness was observed to be the highest in grassland soil and positively correlated with soil organic matter, total nitrogen, and nitrate-nitrogen. The bacterial and fungal community structures were similar in grassland and brushland areas, but were significantly differentiated in the coniferous and broadleaf forest, and the leading factors were soil pH and nitrate-nitrogen. Actinobacteriota, Proteobacteria, and Acidobacteriota were the dominant bacterial phyla under different vegetation reconstruction modes. The dominant phyla of fungi were Ascomycota, Basidiomycota, and Mortierellomycota. Different vegetation reconstruction modes did not affect the bacterial functional communities but shaped different functional groups of fungi. The grassland soil was dominated by saprotrophic fungi, while symbiotrophic fungi dominated the coniferous and broadleaf forests. The results suggested that shifts in vegetation reconstruction modes may alter the mining soil bacterial and fungal community structures and function. These findings improve the understanding of microbial ecology in the reclaimed mine soil and provide a reference for the ecological restoration of fragile mining ecosystems.

Automated summary

The study found that different vegetation reconstruction modes influence the microbial community structure and function in mining soil, with soil organic matter, total nitrogen, and nitrate-nitrogen content positively correlated with fungal community richness.