A feasible method of induced biological soil crust propagation through the inoculation of moss and addition of soil amendments in a Pb-Zn tailing pond

Abstract

The stacking of tailings results in serious environmental pollution and plant growth difficulty. However, moss and microorganisms can successfully colonize in tailings to form biological soil crusts (BSCs) and provide a feasible means to ecologically restore tailing reservoirs. Nonetheless, information on this approach is scarce. In this study, a 90 day field experiment was conducted to form BSCs in a Pb-Zn tailing pond in Jianshui County, China by inoculating in-situ moss crust fragments and adding three soil amendments. Results showed that induced BSCs successfully propagated, and the biomass increased to 15.51–20.33 times the initial value. Moss inoculation considerably increased the soil moisture, water-holding capacity, and phosphatase by 9.2 %, 8.8 %, and 64.0 %, respectively, and decreased exchangeable fraction Pb by 30.7 %. The co-inoculation of moss and biochar remarkably increased soil moisture, water-holding capacity, cation exchange capacity, sucrase, urease, and phosphatase activity by 22.3 %, 23.4 %, 116 %, 80.5 %, 28.6 %, and 240 %, respectively, and decreased the bulk density by 13.3 %. The addition of red soil reduced the total contents of Pb and Zn, whereas that of the stabilizer increased the pH and decreased the bioavailability of Pb and Zn. Co-inoculation greatly increased the biotic community species richness and changed their structure and function. The dominant photosynthetic eukaryotes shifted from Synechococcales to Oscillatoriales. Bacterial nutritional types shifted from chemoautotrophy to photoautotrophy and chemoautotrophy, and fungal nutritional types changed from oligotrophy to copiotrophy. These changes drove alterations in bacterial and fungal community structures. These results indicated that the propagation of induced BSCs can rapidly improve the soil structure and nutrient cycle, restore the biotic abundance and function, and facilitate the soil formation of tailings. Thus, this method holds promise for the ecological restoration of tailings.