Insight into soilless revegetation of oligotrophic and heavy metal contaminated gold tailing pond by metagenomic analysis

Abstract

Soilless revegetation is an efficient way for gold tailing remediation, and micro-ecological environments in plant rhizosphere are important for vegetation establishment and pollution removal. In the present study, a field experiment of soilless revegetation has been carried out in a gold tailings pond, and the key genera and functional genes in the plant rhizosphere of gold mine tailings were revealed by metagenomics analysis. Soilless revegetation significantly decreased rhizosphere tailing pH from 8.54 to 7.43–7.87, reduced heavy metal (HM) concentration by 29.81–44.02% and enhanced the nutrient content by 50.30–169.50% averagely. Such improvements were strongly and closely correlated to microbial community and functional gene composition variation. The relative abundance of ecologically beneficial genus such as Actinobacteria (increased 9.7–18.8%) and functional genes involved in carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus cycling such as pyruvate metabolism (relatively increased 8.7–15.0%), assimilatory (increased to 1.44–2.08 times), phosphate ester mineralization (increased to 1.12–1.29 times) and phosphate transportation (increased to 1.28–1.85 times) were significantly increased. Moreover, the relative abundance of most As and Zn resistance genes were reduced, which may relate to the decrease of As and Zn concentration in the rhizosphere tailings. These results revealed the correlation among HM concentrations, microbial composition and functional genes, and provided clear strategies for improving gold mine tailing ecological restoration efficiency.