Soil Biology Group, School of Earth and Environment, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia.
Appl Environ Microbiol. 2011 Sep;77(17):6158-64. doi: 10.1128/AEM.00764-11. Epub 2011 Jul 1.
Soil microbial community characterization is increasingly being used to determine the responses of soils to stress and disturbances and to assess ecosystem sustainability. However, there is little experimental evidence to indicate that predictable patterns in microbial community structure or composition occur during secondary succession or ecosystem restoration. This study utilized a chronosequence of developing jarrah (Eucalyptus marginata) forest ecosystems, rehabilitated after bauxite mining (up to 18 years old), to examine changes in soil bacterial and fungal community structures (by automated ribosomal intergenic spacer analysis [ARISA]) and changes in specific soil bacterial phyla by 16S rRNA gene microarray analysis. This study demonstrated that mining in these ecosystems significantly altered soil bacterial and fungal community structures. The hypothesis that the soil microbial community structures would become more similar to those of the surrounding nonmined forest with rehabilitation age was broadly supported by shifts in the bacterial but not the fungal community. Microarray analysis enabled the identification of clear successional trends in the bacterial community at the phylum level and supported the finding of an increase in similarity to nonmined forest soil with rehabilitation age. Changes in soil microbial community structure were significantly related to the size of the microbial biomass as well as numerous edaphic variables (including pH and C, N, and P nutrient concentrations). These findings suggest that soil bacterial community dynamics follow a pattern in developing ecosystems that may be predictable and can be conceptualized as providing an integrated assessment of numerous edaphic variables.
土壤微生物群落特征的描述越来越多地被用于确定土壤对压力和干扰的响应，并评估生态系统的可持续性。然而，几乎没有实验证据表明，在次生演替或生态系统恢复过程中，微生物群落结构或组成会出现可预测的模式。本研究利用了一个在铝土矿开采（最多 18 年）后恢复的发展中的桉树（Eucalyptus marginata）森林生态系统的时间序列，来研究土壤细菌和真菌群落结构（通过自动核糖体基因间隔区分析[ARISA]）的变化，以及通过 16S rRNA 基因微阵列分析特定土壤细菌门的变化。本研究表明，这些生态系统中的采矿显著改变了土壤细菌和真菌群落结构。随着恢复年龄的增加，土壤微生物群落结构将变得更类似于周围未开采森林的假说得到了广泛的支持，这主要是由于细菌群落的变化。微阵列分析能够在细菌门水平上识别出明显的细菌群落演替趋势，并支持随着恢复年龄的增加与未开采森林土壤相似性增加的发现。土壤微生物群落结构的变化与微生物生物量的大小以及许多土壤变量（包括 pH 值和 C、N 和 P 养分浓度）显著相关。这些发现表明，土壤细菌群落动态遵循一个发展中的生态系统的模式，该模式可能是可预测的，并可被视为对众多土壤变量的综合评估。
