title: Ecological restoration alters microbial communities in mine tailings profiles.
abstract: Ecological restoration of mine tailings have impact on soil physiochemical properties and microbial communities. The surface soil has been a primary concern in the past decades, however it remains poorly understood about the adaptive response of microbial communities along the profile during ecological restoration of the tailings. In this study, microbial communities along a 60-cm profile were investigated in a mine tailing pond during ecological restoration of the bare waste tailings (BW) with two vegetated soils of Imperata cylindrica (IC) and Chrysopogon zizanioides (CZ) plants. Revegetation of both IC and CZ could retard soil degradation of mine tailing by stimulation of soil pH at 0-30 cm soils and altered the bacterial communities at 0-20 cm depths of the mine tailings. Significant differences existed in the relative abundance of the phyla Alphaproteobacteria, Deltaproteobacteria, Acidobacteria, Firmicutes and Nitrospira. Slight difference of bacterial communities were found at 30-60 cm depths of mine tailings. Abundance and activity analysis of nifH genes also explained the elevated soil nitrogen contents at the surface 0-20 cm of the vegetated soils. These results suggest that microbial succession occurred primarily at surface tailings and vegetation of pioneering plants might have promoted ecological restoration of mine tailings.
authors.affiliation: School of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Anhui University, Hefei, Anhui Province, China.
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Soil and Sustainable Agriculture, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China.
authors.forename: Zhongjun
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Jia
authors.affiliation: School of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Anhui University, Hefei, Anhui Province, China.
authors.forename: Qingye
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: School of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Anhui University, Hefei, Anhui Province, China.
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhan
authors.affiliation: School of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Anhui University, Hefei, Anhui Province, China.
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: School of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Anhui University, Hefei, Anhui Province, China.
authors.forename: Dan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000145:classification* / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D058448:Biota; D052918:Environmental Restoration and Remediation; D056186:Metagenomics; D006109:Poaceae / Q000254:growth & development*; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D012987:Soil / Q000737:chemistry; D012988:Soil Microbiology
chemical_list: D012987:Soil