Soil Metaproteomics as a Tool for Environmental Monitoring of Minelands

Felipe Costa Trindade,Cecílio Frois Caldeira,Guilherme Oliveira,Rafael Borges Da Silva Valadares,Josiney Farias De Araújo,Silvio Junio Ramos,Markus Gastauer

doi:10.3390/f12091158

Felipe Costa Trindade, Cecílio Frois Caldeira + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/f12091158

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Abstract

Opencast mining drastically alters the landscape due to complete vegetation suppression and removal of topsoil layers. Precise indicators able to address incremental changes in soil quality are necessary to monitor and evaluate mineland rehabilitation projects. For this purpose, metaproteomics may be a useful tool due to its capacity to shed light on both taxonomic and functional overviews of soil biodiversity, allowing the linkage between proteins found in soil and ecosystem functioning. We investigated bacterial proteins and peptide abundance of three different mineland rehabilitation stages and compared it with a non-rehabilitated site and a native area (evergreen dense forest) in the eastern Amazon. The total amount of identified soil proteins was significantly higher in the rehabilitating and native soils than in the non-rehabilitated site. Regarding soil bacterial composition, the intermediate and advanced sites were shown to be most similar to native soil. Cyanobacteria and Firmicutes phyla are abundant in the early stages of environmental rehabilitation, while Proteobacteria population dominates the later stages. Enzyme abundances and function in the three rehabilitation stages were more similar to those found in the native soil, and the higher accumulation of many hydrolases and oxidoreductases reflects the improvement of soil biological activity in the rehabilitating sites when compared to the non-rehabilitated areas. Moreover, critical ecological processes, such as carbon and nitrogen cycling, seem to return to the soil in short periods after the start of rehabilitation activities (i.e., 4 years). Metaproteomics revealed that the biochemical processes that occur belowground can be followed throughout rehabilitation stages, and the enzymes shown here can be used as targets for environmental monitoring of mineland rehabilitation projects.

Highlights

Despite economic and social benefits, open cast mining drastically alters the landscape due to complete vegetation suppression and removal of topsoil layers [1]
The environmental variables observed in this work (Table 3) showed higher values (p < 0.05) for soil organic matter (SOM) in the intermediate and advanced rehabilitation areas and native areas than in the NR and early rehabilitation stages
A linear increase in vegetation coverage measured through the leaf area index (LAI) was observed according to the rehabilitation time

Summary

Introduction

Despite economic and social benefits, open cast mining drastically alters the landscape due to complete vegetation suppression and removal of topsoil layers [1]. Given the complexity of the rehabilitation process and the monitoring of mined lands, metaproteomics can be a valuable tool in environmental monitoring [3] of these areas. Changes in microbial community can precede detectable changes in soil physicochemical properties, thereby providing early signs of environmental stress or ecological environment evolution in the mining area [7]. The metabolic and cellular information provided by metaproteomics may be useful for tracking the responses of a microbial community of soils subjected to different soil uses and management [9]. In this way, metaproteomics permits the linkage between the presence of soil microorganisms’

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