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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Terrestrial Microbiology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2024.1416515
This article is part of the Research Topic Response of Soil Microbial Structure and Function with Vegetation Succession in Temperate Ecosystems View all 8 articles

Closing the gap: Examining the impact of source habitat proximity on plant and soil microbial communities in post-mining spoil heap succession

Provisionally accepted
Lenka Mészárošová Lenka Mészárošová 1,2*Eliška Kuťáková Eliška Kuťáková 3,4,5Petr Kohout Petr Kohout 1Zuzana Münzbergová Zuzana Münzbergová 3,5Petr Baldrian Petr Baldrian 1
  • 1 Laboratory of Environmental Microbiology, Institute of Microbiology (ASCR), Prague, Czechia
  • 2 University of Chemistry and Technology in Prague, Prague, Prague, Czechia
  • 3 Institute of Botany (ASCR), Průhonice, Czechia
  • 4 Department of Forest Ecology and Management, Faculty of Forest Sciences, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Umeå, Västerbotten, Sweden
  • 5 Faculty of Science, Charles University, Prague, Prague, Czechia

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Revegetation of barren substrates is often determined by the composition and distance of the nearest plant community, serving as a source of colonising propagules. Whether such dispersal effect can be observed during the development of soil microbial communities, is not clear. In this study, we aimed to elucidate which factors structure plant and soil bacterial and fungal communities during primary succession on a limestone quarry spoil heap, focusing on the effect of distance to the adjoining xerophilous grassland. We established a grid of 35 plots covering three successional stagesinitial barren substrate, early successional community and late successional grassland ecosystem, the latter serving as the primary source of soil colonization. On these plots, we performed vegetation surveys of plant community composition and collected soil cores to analyse soil chemical properties and bacterial and fungal community composition.The composition of early successional plant community was significantly affected by the proximity of the source late successional community, however, the effect weakened when the distance exceeded 20 m. Early successional microbial communities were structured mainly by the local plant community composition and soil chemical properties, with minimal contribution of the source community proximity.These results show that on small spatial scales, species migration is an important determinant of plant community composition during primary succession while the establishment of soil microbial communities is not limited by dispersal and is primarily driven by local biotic and abiotic conditions.

    Keywords: Soil bacterial community, soil fungal community, primary succession, source habitat proximity, Temperate grassland

    Received: 12 Apr 2024; Accepted: 13 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Mészárošová, Kuťáková, Kohout, Münzbergová and Baldrian. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Lenka Mészárošová, Laboratory of Environmental Microbiology, Institute of Microbiology (ASCR), Prague, Czechia

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