Native AM fungal inoculation in Estonian quarry for vegetation restoration. Native AM fungal inoculation of quarries for vegetation restoration

1. Among terrestrial ecosystems, grasslands are one of the most threatened biomes and conservation alone will not be sufficient in maintaining these habitats. Ecological restoration of grasslands are of great importance if biodiversity goals are to be met. Even though the restoration of indigenous grasslands should be a well established priority, the societal clash between economical aspirations and nature conservation compels the search for additional habitats that could be used to offset some of the loss of grassland areas. One possibility for this could be seen in areas influenced by mining activity. With up to 800,000 km² of global land affected by mining, there are valuable opportunities in post-mining landscapes for creating additional grassland habitat.2. We aimed to assess whether the co-introduction of native arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi and plants is an efficient means of initializing species rich vegetation recovery in barren post-mining landscapes. For this, we set up an experiment in three post-mining areas in Estonia, where we seeded plots with native plant seeds and inoculated them with native AM fungi from a similar habitat. We described the development and composition of AM fungal and plant communities in two consecutive years. 3. Our results demonstrate that co-introduction of native plants and AM fungi is an effective way to induce the establishment of species rich vegetation in post-mining areas. Co-introduction of symbiotic partners resulted in higher richness, diversity and abundance of plants and AM fungi than either separately. However, developing plant and AM fungal communities are not distinct from uninoculated treatments and rather form a richer subset of the local species pool.4. Synthesis and applications: This study shows that managing the below-ground microbiome is an essential part in vegetation restoration. The availability of symbiotic partners can be considered a key aspect in regard to the resulting vegetation diversity. Targeted inoculations with native and habitat-specific AM fungi could therefore markedly increase restoration success.