Effects of regenerating vegetation on soil enzyme activity and microbial structure in reclaimed soils on a surface coal mine site
Introduction
Soil enzymes play a fundamental role in nutrient mineralization, organic matter decomposition and plant nutrient cycling. Soil enzyme activities integrate information about microbial status and soil physicochemical conditions (Aon and Colaneri, 2001, Sinsabaugh et al., 2010), and are indicators of the functioning of soil ecosystems (Ciarkowska et al., 2014). They have been similarly used in studies on the effectiveness of reclaimed treatments on soil quality (Li et al., 2012, Schimann et al., 2012, Finkenbein et al., 2013, Ciarkowska et al., 2014). The activity of acid phosphatase may be a useful bioindicator for monitoring soil quality of acid, P-deficient substrates from subtropical surface coal mines (Finkenbein et al., 2013), and urease and invertase activities can be used as progress indicators for soil-rehabilitation processes in industrial areas (Ciarkowska et al., 2014). Soil enzyme activities were improved by applying weathered coals in reclaimed opencast-mining areas of the Loess Plateau of China (Li et al., 2012).
Enzymes are associated with proliferating soil microbial communities, which play a key role in many soil processes and the delivery of essential soil ecosystem services (Gomez-Sagasti et al., 2012). Soil microbial community is one of the most important issues for restoration of sustainable ecosystem in post-mining lands because most sites have unfavorable properties (Kaschuk et al., 2010). Soil microbial activities and structure varied with different rehabilitation types and time (Claassens et al., 2008, Dangi et al., 2012, Finkenbein et al., 2013). We applied T-RFLP (terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism) into analyzing the effects of reclaimed scenarios and fertilizer treatments on soil bacterial, archaeal and fungal communities during the initial recovery stage, and found that soil microbial communities were significantly influenced by reclaimed scenarios and T-RFLP was proven powerful in describing differences and changes in soil microbial community structures (Li et al., 2013b).
Mining activities have produced great damage to eco-environment, and legal requirements to reclaim highly disturbed lands are becoming increasingly common (Holl, 2002). Soil enzyme activities and microbial properties have increasingly been used indicators of soil quality to evaluate the success of reclamation efforts (Ciarkowska et al., 2014; Li et al., 2013b Schimann et al., 2012). For the Loess Plateau of China, there are few studies on the use of soil enzyme and microbe to assess the success of reclamation in surface coal mines treated with various amendments (Li et al., 2012, Li et al., 2012). In this study, we present soil enzyme activities and microbial abundance and diversity in six soil samples from reclaimed scenarios in surface coal mine, the Northwest Loess Plateau of China. The aim of this study was to describe and evaluate the effects of different reclaimed scenarios on soil properties development and microbe succession.
Section snippets
Site description and soil sampling
This study was conducted on reclaimed mine spoils in antaibao opencast coal mining area (39°23′–39°23′N; 112°11′–112°30′E) in Northwest Plateau Loess, China. The altitude is 1300–1400 m. The climate is terrestrial temperate, and the area experiences semi-arid monsoons. Annual average precipitation is about 450 mm, with rainfall occurring mainly from June to September. The annual average air temperature is about 6.2 °C, and the frost-free season ranges in length from 115 to 130 days.
There were six
Soil chemical properties
Compared to control study site (CK), five reclaimed scenarios significantly improved soil nutrients, however, they did not influence soil pH (Table 2). The values of SOC, TN and AVN from MF1 sites were the highest among reclaimed scenarios, and the lowest ones were from MF2 sites.
Soil enzyme activities
There were significant differences on soil invertase, dehydrogenase, polyphenol oxidase and urease activities among reclaimed scenarios (Table 3). Soil enzyme activities form MF1 and MF4 sites kept significantly higher
Discussion
Soil enzymes are specific to a substrate and have active sites that bind with the substrate to form a temporary complex. We found that the reclaimed scenarios significantly improved soil organic matters compared to CK site (Table 2). High soil concentrations of organic matter in the reclaimed treatments resulted to enzyme activities increasing (Table 3), and we also observed that soil enzyme activities were positively correlated with SOC, TN and AVN (Table 5). This is in accordance with those
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