Kumaresan, D., A.T. Cross, B. Moreira-Grez, K. Kariman, P. Nevill, J. Stevens, R.J.N Allcock, et al.
Scientific Reports 7:564(2017)

Recycling of mining site substrates can be achieved by blending the waste materials with native soil to form a novel substrate that can be used in future landscape restoration; however, these post-mining substrate-based soils are likely to contain significant abiotic constraints for plant and microbial growth. Using both marker gene and shotgun metagenome sequencing, researchers showed that topsoil storage and the blending of soil and waste substrates to form planting substrates gave rise to variable bacterial and archaeal phylogenetic composition but a high degree of metabolic conservation at the community metagenome level. Their data indicated that whilst low phylogenetic conservation was apparent across substrate blends, high functional redundancy was observed in relation to key soil microbial pathways, allowing the potential for functional recovery of key belowground pathways under targeted management. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-00650-6