# Long-term coal gangue dump regulates bacterial communities in different disturbance areas: Evidence mostly from diversity and network complexity

## TL;DR

This study shows how long-term coal gangue dumping affects soil bacteria communities and their response to environmental changes.

## Contribution

The study reveals how coal gangue dump disturbances alter bacterial community structures and their ecological networks.

## Key findings

- Bacterial communities in disturbed areas showed significant differences in diversity and network complexity.
- Soil organic carbon (SOC) was the main factor influencing bacterial community structure.
- Bacteria with lower abundance could be key nodes in ecological networks despite their low relative abundance.

## Abstract

In order to clarify the effects of long-term coal gangue(CG) dump on the surrounding soil bacterial community structure, we selected the CG dump formed during the mining of Tunlan coal mine in Gujiao city, Shanxi province in China as the study area to conduct a comprehensive study, the experimental design included six distinct zones: control soil area with no impaction (NC), undisturbed control sediment area (NL), atmospheric dry and wet deposition area (MC), upstream (MLS), midstream (MLZ) and downstream (MLX) in the leachate flow area (LFA), Using high-throughput sequencing technology and related software analysis, we obtained the following key findings: The heavy metal contents of Cr and Cd were different significantly in MC and NC (p < 0.05),Cr (90.18 mg·kg-1) in MC was higher than that in NC (65.29 mg·kg-1) (p < 0.05), while Cd (0.09 mg·kg-1) was lower than that in NC (0.14 mg·kg-1) (p < 0.05), and there was no significant differences in Cu, Zn, As and Pb between MC and NC (p > 0.05). All the heavy metal contents in MLS were highest significantly except Cd among NL and LFA. Shannon and Chao1 indices in NC were significantly higher than those in MC (p < 0.05), In LFA, Shannon and Chao1 indices of MLX were the highest, while MLS was significantly lower than NL (p < 0.05). The relative abundance of bacteria more than 40% in MC and NC was Actinomycetes (42.06%−42.38%), and while was Proteobacteria (40.66%−50.77%) in NL and LFA. Bacterial communities in different disturbed areas were significantly correlated with As, Pb, Cu, Cd, TP, SOC and EC in the soil, among which SOC contributed most about 40.1%. Molecular ecological network showed that the interactions among bacterial taxa in MC and LFA were mainly in a positive synergistic development, the bacteria with higher relative abundance may not be the key node in the bacterial molecular ecological network, while bacteria with the lower relative abundance might have been. The bacterial community structure of MC was more complex than NC because of fewer nodes and modules but more connections. The positive connection proportion and modules of bacteria in LFA was higher than that in NL, while the aggregation coefficient decreased. The average path distance (5.09) in MLS was the shortest, indicating the bacteria in MLS were most environmental sensitive to the external environment with rapid community response to disturbances. Our results revealed the changes in the bacterial community and the main environmental driving factors under disturbance of CG dump, this information provides a theoretical basis for ecological environment management.