Soil chemistry properties, translocation of heavy metals, and mycorrhizal fungi associated with six plant species growing on lead-zinc mine tailings

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationships between soil chemistry properties and mycorrhizal fungi in the rhizosphere soils and roots of six dominant plant species grown on Qiandongshan Pb-Zn mine tailings in China. Nested polymerase chain reaction-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (PCR-DGGE) was used to analyze the community composition of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) in the rhizosphere soils and roots of six plant species, including Astragalus adsurgens, Artemisia brachyloba, Potentilla anserina, Phragmites australis, Macleaya cordata, and Gueldenstaedtia stenophylla. Pearson's correlation coefficients were calculated to determine the relationships between soil chemistry properties and AMF and dark septate endophytic (DSE) fungal colonization, glomalin-related soil protein (GRSP) content in soil, and AMF species richness and diversity. Correlation analysis showed that the mycorrhizal colonization rate and GRSP content had close relationships with some soil chemistry properties. AMF colonization had significant effects on the translocation of Zn (r = −0.85, P < 0.05), while DSE colonization was negatively correlated with the translocation of Pb (r = −0.88, P < 0.05). In addition, total Zn content in soil influenced the AMF species richness (r = −0.87, P < 0.05) and diversity index (r = −0.92, P < 0.05). However, no correlation was found between the measured soil chemistry properties and the AMF species richness and diversity in the plant roots. Redundancy analysis (RDA) revealed a significant effect of Pb content in soil on AMF community structure in soil samples (F = 1.382, P = 0.030), and canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) of DGGE profiles showed that soil organic matter had a significant relationship with AMF community structure in the roots (F = 1.582, P = 0.038).