The role of vegetation restoration in shaping the structure and stability of soil bacterial community of alpine mining regions

Abstract

Aims

To better understand and predict how soil bacterial communities in alpine coal mining regions respond to restoration efforts and provide scientific recommendations to enhance restoration efficacy.

Methods

We utilized high-throughput sequencing to investigate the shifts in soil bacterial community structures and stability along the restoration years in the alpine coal mining regions, along with the driving factors behind these changes.

Results

Artificial restoration in alpine mining regions may not enhance bacterial community diversity, while it can notably increase soil nutrient content and plant biomass in the short term, thereby significantly modifying bacterial community structures and improving their stability. With the increase in restoration duration, although plant community diversity significantly increased, soil nutrient content and plant biomass significantly declined, resulting in notable shifts in bacterial community structures and a reduction in their stability. It can be seen that maintaining the benefits of artificial restoration over the long term is problematic, so continuous artificial intervention should be applied in alpine mining. Furthermore, we found that keystone species were predominantly rare species, rather than dominant ones. Meanwhile, more attention should be given to taxa that showed a positive response only to short-term artificial restoration, such as Candidatus Saccharibacteria, Gemmatimonadota, Gp16, Saccharibacteria, and Nitrospira moscoviensis.

Conclusions

In alpine mining regions, artificial restoration can enhance the stability of soil bacterial communities, primarily by increasing soil nutrients, plant biomass and diversity, and bacterial community diversity. Additionally, keystone species, which are mainly rare species rather than dominant ones, play a crucial role in maintaining community stability.