Evaluating the Potential of Forest Species Under “Microbial Management” for the Restoration of Degraded Mining Areas

Abstract

The increasing number of degraded soil areas caused by open cast mining activities has brought about a critical damage to the environment. The mine spoil must be ameliorated with anthropogenic interferences which consist of revegetating soils after organic matter amendment and provision of microbial diversity, to guarantee basic conditions for a sustainable soil biological activity. Five woody species, Acacia mangium Willd., Inga edulis Mart., Mimosa caesalpiniaefolia Benth, Parkia multijuga Benth., and Schinus terebinthifolia Schlecht. & Cham were cultivated under greenhouse conditions to evaluate the potential of plant establishment on cassiterite mining waste, considering the contribution of mycorrhizal fungi inoculation, organic compost, and thermophosphate amendment. The shoot height, dry weight, and nitrogen and phosphorus shoot contents were determined. Three species of nodulating legumes, A. mangium, M. caesalpiniaefolia, and S. terebinthifolia showed a great positive response to organic compost, termophosphate, and mycorrhizal inoculation, increasing the plant height and the shoot dry weight. Plants inoculated with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and fertilized with organic compost also increased their nitrogen and phosphorus shoot contents. The addition of organic compost and mycorrhizal fungi were essential for plant development and the reforestation of mining areas should be initiated with mycotrophic and nodulating legumes.

Plant species distributions along environmental gradients: do belowground interactions with fungi matter?

“…To our knowledge, no study has yet designed spatially explicit experiments that could formally demonstrate the role of fungi in driving the spatial distribution of plant species. This would require the manipulation of fungal communities in the field, either with fungal-addition treatments (Mendes et al, 2010), fungal-removal treatments using fungicides (Helgason et al, 2007), or a combination of both. However, field manipulation of micro-organisms is challenging and complementary correlative approaches such as used here will likely remain valuable to garner information on plant-fungi interactions at wider spatial scales.…”

Intercropping Acacia mangium stimulates AMF colonization and soil phosphatase activity in Eucalyptus grandis

“…Ignoring seasonal effects, AMF colonization was always higher in A. mangium monoculture and intercropped plantations (AMS and EMS), since this is a highly mycotrophic species (Mendes-Filho et al, 2009). According to Ghosh and Verma (2006), Acacia seedlings inoculated with AMF (Glomus mosseae, G. occultum and G. aggregatum) show an increase in shoot dry matter, root diameter, leaf area, chlorophyll content and biomass of A. mangium, when compared with the non-inoculated control plants.…”

“…Though both species, E. grandis and A. mangium, can associate either with AMF or with ectomycorrhizal fungi (Mendes-Filho et al, 2009;Pagano et al, 2008), our studies were restricted to the first group, since our observations refer to very young plants, beginning at the seedling stage, a period in which there is a predominance of AMF colonization in the roots of both plants (Adams et al, 2006;Pagano and Scotti, 2008). However, very little is known about the association between AMF and Eucalyptus, especially when intercropped with A. mangium, which is characterized by forming symbioses with Nfixing bacteria and AMF (Mendes-Filho et al, 2009). Intercropped systems generally show greater diversity and abundance of AMF than pure stands (Pagano et al, 2009).…”

Use of Reclaimed Mine Soil Index (RMSI) for screening of tree species for reclamation of coal mine degraded land

“…Coalmine degraded lands are reclaimed by planting drought resistant, fast growing trees without considering their ameliorative properties. Different tree species have varying degree of ameliorative affect on mine soils (Mukhopadhyay and Maiti, 2011;Juwarkar et al, 2010;Mendes Filho et al, 2010;Sinha et al, 2009;Dutta and Agrawal, 2003). Yao et al (2010) studied the improvement in physicochemical properties of a 15-year old reclaimed coal mine soils (Inner Mongolia, China) and concluded that different tree species have varying degree of influence on soil forming process.…”