Journal article

Publication year: 2023

Journal: Science of the Total Environment

Volume number: 882

ISSN: 0048-9697

eISSN: 1879-1026

Open access status: Bronze

DOI Link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.163663

Publisher: Elsevier

Abstract: 
Toward the restoration of the increasing numbers of abandoned mines across China, external-soil spray seeding tech-nologies have become more extensively utilized. However, considerable challenges remain that seriously hamper the effectiveness of these technologies, such as inadequate nutrient availability for plants. Previous studies have shown that mineral-solubilizing microbial inoculants can increase the nodules of legumes. However, their effects on symbiotic nitrogen fixation (SNF), asymbiotic nitrogen fixation (ANF), and diazotrophic communities remain unknown. Further, research into the application of functional microorganisms for the restoration of abandoned mines has been conducted either in greenhouses, or their application in the field has been too brief. Thus, we established a four-year field exper-iment in an abandoned mine and quantified the SNF, ANF, and diazotrophic communities. To the best of our knowl-edge, this study is the first to describe the long-term application of specific functional microorganisms for the remediation of abandoned mine sites in the field. We revealed that mineral-solubilizing microbial inoculants signifi-cantly increased the soil ANF rate and SNF content. There was no significant correlation between the diazotrophic alpha diversity and soil ANF rate; however, there were strong positive associations between the relative abundance and biodiversity of keystone phylotype (module #5) within ecological clusters and the ANF rate. Molecular ecological networks indicated that microbial inoculants increased network complexity and stability. Moreover, the inoculants sig-nificantly enhanced the deterministic ratio of diazotrophic communities. Furthermore, homogeneous selection pre-dominantly mediated the assembly of soil diazotrophic communities. It was concluded that mineral-solubilizing microorganisms played a critical role in maintaining and enhancing nitrogen, which offers a new solution with great potential for the restoration of ecosystems at abandoned mine sites.

Harvard Citation style: Li, C., Jia, Z., Zhang, S., Li, T., Ma, S., Cheng, X., et al. (2023) The positive effects of mineral-solubilizing microbial inoculants on asymbiotic nitrogen fixation of abandoned mine soils are driven by keystone phylotype, Science of the Total Environment, 882, Article 163663. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.163663

APA Citation style: Li, C., Jia, Z., Zhang, S., Li, T., Ma, S., Cheng, X., Chen, M., Nie, H., Zhai, L., Zhang, B., Liu, X., Zhang, J., & Müller, C. (2023). The positive effects of mineral-solubilizing microbial inoculants on asymbiotic nitrogen fixation of abandoned mine soils are driven by keystone phylotype. Science of the Total Environment. 882, Article 163663. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.163663