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Microbial community structural and functional differentiation in capped thickened oil sands tailings planted with native boreal species

The oil sands mining operations in Alberta have produced billions of m(3) of tailings which must be reclaimed and integrated into various mine closure landforms, including terrestrial landforms. Microorganisms play a central role in nutrient cycling during the reclamation of disturbed landscapes, co...

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Autores principales: Samad, Abdul, Degenhardt, Dani, Séguin, Armand, Morency, Marie-Josée, Gagné, Patrick, Martineau, Christine
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10350512/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37465026
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2023.1168653
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author Samad, Abdul
Degenhardt, Dani
Séguin, Armand
Morency, Marie-Josée
Gagné, Patrick
Martineau, Christine
author_facet Samad, Abdul
Degenhardt, Dani
Séguin, Armand
Morency, Marie-Josée
Gagné, Patrick
Martineau, Christine
author_sort Samad, Abdul
collection PubMed
description The oil sands mining operations in Alberta have produced billions of m(3) of tailings which must be reclaimed and integrated into various mine closure landforms, including terrestrial landforms. Microorganisms play a central role in nutrient cycling during the reclamation of disturbed landscapes, contributing to successful vegetation restoration and long-term sustainability. However, microbial community succession and response in reconstructed and revegetated tailings remain largely unexplored. This study aimed to monitor the structural and functional responses of microbial communities in tailings subjected to different capping and vegetation strategies over two growing seasons (GS). To achieve this, a column-based greenhouse experiment was conducted to investigate microbial communities in tailings that were capped with a layer (10 or 30 cm) of peat-mineral mix (PMM) and planted with either upland or wetland communities. DNA metabarcoding analysis of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene and fungal ITS2 region as well as shotgun metagenomics were used to asses the impact of treatments on microbial taxonomy and functions, respectively. Results showed that tailings microbial diversity and community composition changed considerably after two GS compared to baseline samples, while communities in the PMM capping layer were much more stable. Likewise, several microbial functions were significantly enriched in tailings after two GS. Interestingly, the impact of capping on bacterial communities in tailings varied depending on the plant community, leading to a higher number of differentially abundant taxa and to a decrease in Shannon diversity and evenness in the upland treatment but not in the wetland treatment. Moreover, while capping in the presence of wetland vegetation increased the energy-related metabolic functions (carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur), these functions were depleted by capping in the upland treatment. Fungi represented a small proportion of the microbial community in tailings, but the relative abundance of several taxa changed over time, while the capping treatments favored the growth of some beneficial taxa, notably the root endophyte Serendipita, in both upland and wetland columns. The results suggest that selecting the right combination of capping material and vegetation type may contribute to improve below-ground microbial processes and sustain plant growth in harsh environments such as oil sands tailings.
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spelling pubmed-103505122023-07-18 Microbial community structural and functional differentiation in capped thickened oil sands tailings planted with native boreal species Samad, Abdul Degenhardt, Dani Séguin, Armand Morency, Marie-Josée Gagné, Patrick Martineau, Christine Front Microbiol Microbiology The oil sands mining operations in Alberta have produced billions of m(3) of tailings which must be reclaimed and integrated into various mine closure landforms, including terrestrial landforms. Microorganisms play a central role in nutrient cycling during the reclamation of disturbed landscapes, contributing to successful vegetation restoration and long-term sustainability. However, microbial community succession and response in reconstructed and revegetated tailings remain largely unexplored. This study aimed to monitor the structural and functional responses of microbial communities in tailings subjected to different capping and vegetation strategies over two growing seasons (GS). To achieve this, a column-based greenhouse experiment was conducted to investigate microbial communities in tailings that were capped with a layer (10 or 30 cm) of peat-mineral mix (PMM) and planted with either upland or wetland communities. DNA metabarcoding analysis of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene and fungal ITS2 region as well as shotgun metagenomics were used to asses the impact of treatments on microbial taxonomy and functions, respectively. Results showed that tailings microbial diversity and community composition changed considerably after two GS compared to baseline samples, while communities in the PMM capping layer were much more stable. Likewise, several microbial functions were significantly enriched in tailings after two GS. Interestingly, the impact of capping on bacterial communities in tailings varied depending on the plant community, leading to a higher number of differentially abundant taxa and to a decrease in Shannon diversity and evenness in the upland treatment but not in the wetland treatment. Moreover, while capping in the presence of wetland vegetation increased the energy-related metabolic functions (carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur), these functions were depleted by capping in the upland treatment. Fungi represented a small proportion of the microbial community in tailings, but the relative abundance of several taxa changed over time, while the capping treatments favored the growth of some beneficial taxa, notably the root endophyte Serendipita, in both upland and wetland columns. The results suggest that selecting the right combination of capping material and vegetation type may contribute to improve below-ground microbial processes and sustain plant growth in harsh environments such as oil sands tailings. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-07-03 /pmc/articles/PMC10350512/ /pubmed/37465026 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2023.1168653 Text en Copyright © 2023 Samad, Degenhardt, Séguin, Morency, Gagné and Martineau. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Microbiology
Samad, Abdul
Degenhardt, Dani
Séguin, Armand
Morency, Marie-Josée
Gagné, Patrick
Martineau, Christine
Microbial community structural and functional differentiation in capped thickened oil sands tailings planted with native boreal species
title Microbial community structural and functional differentiation in capped thickened oil sands tailings planted with native boreal species
title_full Microbial community structural and functional differentiation in capped thickened oil sands tailings planted with native boreal species
title_fullStr Microbial community structural and functional differentiation in capped thickened oil sands tailings planted with native boreal species
title_full_unstemmed Microbial community structural and functional differentiation in capped thickened oil sands tailings planted with native boreal species
title_short Microbial community structural and functional differentiation in capped thickened oil sands tailings planted with native boreal species
title_sort microbial community structural and functional differentiation in capped thickened oil sands tailings planted with native boreal species
topic Microbiology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10350512/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37465026
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2023.1168653
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