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1. Grasslands are among the most threatened terrestrial biomes, and
habitat conservation alone will be insufficient to meet biodiversity
goals. While restoration of indigenous grasslands is a priority, conflict
with economic objectives means that incorporation of alternative habitats
is necessary to offset grassland loss. With up to 800,000 km² of land
affected by mining globally, there is an opportunity to create additional
grassland habitat in post-mining landscapes. 2. We aimed to assess whether
co-introduction of native arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi and plants is
an efficient means of initializing species rich vegetation recovery in
barren post-mining landscapes. We established an experiment in three
post-mining areas in Estonia, where we seeded plots with native plant
seeds and inoculated them with trap cultured native AM fungi from a
similar habitat. We measured the abundance and composition of soil AM
fungal and aboveground plant communities in two consecutive years using
relevés, high-throughput sequencing and fatty acid profiling. 3. Our
results demonstrate that co-introduction of native plants and AM fungi is
an effective way to establish species rich vegetation in post-mining
areas. Co-introduction of symbiotic partners resulted in higher richness,
diversity and abundance of plants and AM fungi than when either partner
was introduced individually. However, the plant and AM fungal communities
in sown and inoculated plots were not distinct from those in uninoculated
treatments; they rather formed a subset of all taxa present on the sites
but exhibited higher diversity than uninoculated plots. 4. Synthesis and
applications: This study shows that managing the below-ground microbiome
is an essential part of vegetation restoration. The availability of
symbiotic partners can be considered a key aspect determining the
diversity of restored vegetation. Targeted inoculations with native and
habitat-specific AM fungi could therefore increase restoration
success.28-Apr-2020
140 views reported since publication in 2020.