Diversified Vegetation Cover Alleviates Microbial Resource Limitations within Soil Aggregates in Tailings

作者：Wenliang Ju, Jordi Sardans, Haijian Bing, Jie Wang, Dengke Ma, Yongxing Cui, Chengjiao Duan, Xiankun Li, Qiaohui Fan, Josep Peñuelas, Linchuan Fang · 发表于：Environmental Science & Technology · 年份：2024 · DOI：10.1021/acs.est.4c06081 · 被引用次数：26 · 研究领域：Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics、Microbial Community Ecology and Physiology、Soil and Unsaturated Flow

Resource demand by soil microorganisms critically influences microbial metabolism and then influences ecosystem resilience and multifunctionality. The ecological remediation of abandoned tailings is a topic of broad interest, yet our understanding of microbial metabolic status in restored soils, particularly at the aggregate scale, remains limited. This study investigated microbial resources within soil aggregates from revegetated tailings and applied a vector model of ecoenzymatic stoichiometry to examine how different vegetation patterns (grassland, forest, or bare land control) impact microbial resource limitation. Five-year vegetation restoration significantly elevated carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) concentrations and their stoichiometric ratios in soil aggregates (approximately 2-fold), although these increases were not translated to in the microbial biomass and its stoichiometry. The activities of C- and phosphorus (P)-acquiring extracellular enzymes in these aggregates increased substantially postvegetation, with the most pronounced escalation in macroaggregates (>0.25 mm). The vector model results indicated soil microbial metabolism was colimited by C and P, most acutely in microaggregates (<0.25 mm). This colimitation was exacerbated by monotypic vegetation cover but mitigated under diversified vegetation cover. Soil nutrient stoichiometric ratios in vegetation restoration controlled microbial resource limitation, overshadowing the impact of heavy metals. Our findings u...