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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Terrestrial Microbiology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2024.1500070
This article is part of the Research Topic Anthropogenic Effects on the Microbial Communities of Terrestrial Ecosystems View all 29 articles

Impacts of phosphate-solubilizing bacterium strain MWP-1 on vegetation growth, soil characteristics, and microbial communities in the Muli coal mining area, China

Provisionally accepted
Yanru Wu Yanru Wu Wenquan Yang Wenquan Yang KOU JIANCUN KOU JIANCUN *Qinyao Li Qinyao Li Jiaqing Liu Jiaqing Liu Lu Chi Lu Chi Yangcan Zhang Yangcan Zhang Qian Liu Qian Liu Yanghua Yu Yanghua Yu
  • Northwest A&F University, Xianyang, China

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

    Due to the cold climate and low soil nutrient content, high-altitude mining areas are challenging to restore ecologically. Their poor nutrient content may be ameliorated by introducing specific microorganisms into the soil. This study aims to evaluate the effects of a highly efficient phosphate solubilizing bacterium MWP-1, Pseudomonas poae, on plant growth, soil nutrients in remedying the soil of the high-altitude Muli mining area in Qinghai Province, and analyze its impact on microbial communities through high-throughput sequencing soil microbial communities. The results showed that MWP-1 significantly increased the content of soil available phosphorus by >50%, soil organic matter and total nitrogen by >10%, and significantly increased the height, coverage, and aboveground biomass of vegetation by >40% in comparison with the control (p < 0.05). MWP-1 mainly affected the composition of the soil bacterial communities at the taxonomic level below the phylum. Its impact on soil fungal communities occurred at the phylum and below taxonomic levels. In addition, MWP-1 also significantly improved the diversity of soil bacterial and fungal communities (p < 0.05), and changed their functions. It also significantly altered the relative abundance of genes regulating phosphorus absorption and transport, inorganic phosphorus dissolution and organic phosphorus mineralization in the bacterial community (p < 0.05). It caused a significant increase in the relative abundance of the genes regulating nitrogen fixation and nitrification in nitrogen cycling (p < 0.05), but a significant decrease in the genes regulating phospholipase (p < 0.05). Although sequencing results indicated that Pseudomonas poae did not become the dominant species, its dissolved phosphorus elements can promote plant growth and development, enrich soil nutrient content, and affect the succession of microbial communities, enhance ecosystem stability, with an overall positive effect on soil remediation in the mining area.

    Keywords: Phosphate solubilizing bacterium, Vegetation growth, soil microbial communities, Soil nutrient, high-altitude mining area

    Received: 22 Sep 2024; Accepted: 22 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Wu, Yang, JIANCUN, Li, Liu, Chi, Zhang, Liu and Yu. 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: KOU JIANCUN, Northwest A&F University, Xianyang, China

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