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Long-term stacking coal promoted soil bacterial richness associated with increased soil organic matter in coal yards of power plants

  • Soils, Sec 1 • Soil Organic Matter Dynamics and Nutrient Cycling • Research Article
  • Published:
Journal of Soils and Sediments Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

Coal exploitation inevitably brings a chain of ecological problems, e.g., land destruction and biodiversity decrease. Most previous studies have investigated the ecological effect of coal mining process and the ecological restoration after coal mining practice. However, no study has concerned about the potential influence of long-term stacking coal process on soil microbial communities, the pivotal components to maintain the health of terrestrial ecosystems. This study aims to investigate the influence of long-term stacking coal on soil microbial communities, as well as the time effect.

Materials and methods

We collected soil samples from coal yards of four power plants (representing four stacking time: 10, 28, 31, and 71 years) in Huainan city. Soils in the lawn near each coal yard were also selected as control at four sites. Soil microbial communities were analyzed via 16S and 18S rRNA gene sequencing.

Results and discussion

Our results showed that long-term stacking coal significantly (P < 0.05) increased soil organic matter (SOM), and thus facilitated soil bacterial richness and the shifts of bacterial community composition. We also detected significant (P < 0.05) increase of SOM, bacterial richness, and community dissimilarity with stacking time, indicating a substantial time effect. Meanwhile, predicted functional data implied that stacking coal activated anaerobic microbial communities by forming an anaerobic environment in soils.

Conclusions

Together, these data provide basic knowledge of the potential influence of long-term stacking coal on soil microbial communities and reinforce the role of SOM in shaping bacterial community composition and richness.

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41701273, 41671254) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Hundred Talents Program to Y. Ge).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100085, China

    Congcong Shen & Yuan Ge

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Congcong Shen & Yuan Ge

  3. State Grid Anhui Electric Power Co., Ltd. Research Institute, Hefei, 230601, China

    Dawei Ma, Benyao Zhang & Delin Li

  4. Center for Agricultural Resources Research, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shijiazhuang, 050021, China

    Ruibo Sun

Authors
  1. Congcong Shen
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  2. Dawei Ma
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  3. Ruibo Sun
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  4. Benyao Zhang
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  5. Delin Li
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  6. Yuan Ge
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Correspondence to Yuan Ge.

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Responsible editor: Huaiying Yao

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Shen, C., Ma, D., Sun, R. et al. Long-term stacking coal promoted soil bacterial richness associated with increased soil organic matter in coal yards of power plants. J Soils Sediments 19, 3442–3452 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-019-02307-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-019-02307-5

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