Data from: Changes in soil microbial communities in post mine ecological restoration: implications for monitoring using high throughput DNA sequencing

The ecological restoration of ecosystem services and biodiversity is a key
intervention used to reverse the impacts of anthropogenic activities such
as mining. Assessment of the performance of restoration against completion
criteria relies on biodiversity monitoring. However, monitoring usually
overlooks soil microbial communities (SMC), despite increased awareness of
their pivotal role in many ecological functions. Recent advances in cost,
scalability and technology has led to DNA sequencing being considered as a
cost-effective biological monitoring tool, particularly for otherwise
difficult to survey groups such as microbes. However, such approaches for
monitoring complex restoration sites such as post-mined landscapes have
not yet been tested. Here we examine bacterial and fungal communities
across chronosequences of mine site restoration at three locations in
Western Australia to determine if there are consistent changes in SMC
diversity, community composition and functional capacity. Although we
detected directional changes in community composition indicative of
microbial recovery, these were inconsistent between locations and
microbial taxa (bacteria or fungi). Assessing functional diversity
provided greater understanding of changes in site conditions and microbial
recovery than could be determined through assessment of community
composition alone. These results demonstrate that high-throughput amplicon
sequencing of environmental DNA (eDNA) is an effective approach for
monitoring the complex changes in SMC following restoration. Future
monitoring of mine site restoration using eDNA should consider archiving
samples to provide improved understanding of changes in communities over
time. Expansion to include other biological groups (e.g. soil fauna) and
substrates would also provide a more holistic understanding of
biodiversity recovery.