Abstract
Coal mining results in reduced soil quality and makes environments less stable. Soil fungi are suitable indicators of soil quality for monitoring purposes. Here, the objective was therefore to investigate the effects of grazing and mining on the composition of the soil fungal community at the periphery of an opencast coal-mine dump in the Shengli mining area, Xilingol League, Inner Mongolia. A total of 2,110 fungal operational taxonomic units were identified and subdivided into 81 orders and nine categories, based on trophic modes. The sensitive factor to mining was soil pH, and that to grazing were soil nitrate-nitrogen and alkaline phosphatase activity. According to the Pearson correlation and Mantel test, we propose interactions between grazing and coal-mining exist a co-effect and could regulate edaphic variables to alter the behavior of soil fungal community. Moreover, compared with coal-mining, grazing has a greater impact on it. The results provide a basis to further clarify soil fungal ecological functions, and may also contribute to the practice of soil remediation and environmental management in coal-mining areas.
Highlights
Opencast coal mining still has an important role in both energy production and environmental pollution (Liu and Diamond, 2005), causing soil pollution and degradation (Wang et al, 2014; Du et al, 2018), to threaten soil fertility, vegetation growth, and food safety (Liu et al, 2005; Li et al, 2013). Hussain et al (2019) report that coal mining contributes trace elements to the soil and leads to the accumulation of mineral contaminants in food crops and affects human health
With reference to the FUNGuild database, operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were classified into nine categories, according to trophic modes, with the predominant modes being Saprotroph (28.55%), Pathotroph-Saprotroph-Symbiotroph (21.31%), Pathotroph (9.02%), Pathotroph-Saprotroph (5.93%), Saprotroph-Symbiotroph (1.97%), Symbiotroph (1.47%), Pathotroph-Symbiotroph (0.34%), and PathogenSaprotroph-Symbiotroph (0.13%), in addition to Unassigned (31.30%; Supplementary Figure 2)
The relative abundance of Pathotroph-Saprotroph was maximum at restricted grazing area, whereas the relative abundance of PathotrophSaprotroph-Symbiotroph was maximum at grazing area
Summary
Opencast coal mining still has an important role in both energy production and environmental pollution (Liu and Diamond, 2005), causing soil pollution and degradation (Wang et al, 2014; Du et al, 2018), to threaten soil fertility, vegetation growth, and food safety (Liu et al, 2005; Li et al, 2013). Hussain et al (2019) report that coal mining contributes trace elements to the soil and leads to the accumulation of mineral contaminants in food crops and affects human health. Opencast coal mining still has an important role in both energy production and environmental pollution (Liu and Diamond, 2005), causing soil pollution and degradation (Wang et al, 2014; Du et al, 2018), to threaten soil fertility, vegetation growth, and food safety (Liu et al, 2005; Li et al, 2013). Hussain et al (2019) report that coal mining contributes trace elements to the soil and leads to the accumulation of mineral contaminants in food crops and affects human health. The detrimental effects of coal mining can be multiple, involving soil degradation, geological and environmental effects, and loss of biodiversity (Wong, 2003). Soil fungi have a widespread ecological distribution and the diversity of the fungal community can be affected by many variables such as precipitation, temperature, root exudates, available nutrients, plant community composition, and cropping pattern (Newsham et al, 2016; Nagati et al, 2018; Zhang et al, 2018; Schmidt et al, 2019; Tervonen et al, 2019).
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