Effect of vegetation blanket cover with different materials on soil
microbial community structure in opencast coal mines in arid areas
Abstract
:Vegetation blanket restoration techniques of different materials in
mine drainage field provide different environments for plant growth, but
effects of vegetation blanket cover on soil microbial community
structure and their diversity characteristics were not well known,
especially in arid areas. In this study, high-throughput sequencing was
used on the study site, located at Dafeng Mine, the Helan Mountains,
Ningxia, China. Soil microbial communities were analyzed under four
different treatments: Straw, Straw-Coir, Coir vegetation blanket types,
and a bare soil control. The results showed that the contents of soil
total nitrogen, available potassium, urease, and catalase were
significantly increased in different types of vegetation blankets.
High-throughput sequencing showed that the straw vegetation blanket
increased bacterial diversity while the coir vegetation blanket
increased fungal diversity. The dominant bacterial phyla were
Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Actinobacteria, and Chloroflexi, whose
main influencing factors were total nitrogen, catalase, urease, and
protease. The dominant fungal phylum was Ascomycota, whose main
influencing factors were alkaline phosphatase, soil organic carbon,
total nitrogen, and electrical conductance. These results indicate that
vegetation blanket cover can improve the physicochemical properties of
soil, increase the diversity and richness of soil microorganisms, and
improve the structural composition of the community, thus improving the
soil environment in the mining areas in arid regions, while laying a
good foundation for further restoration measures.