Development of soils and communities of plants and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi on West Virginia surface mines.

Surface mining followed by reclamation to pasture is a major driver of land use and cover change in Appalachia. Prior research suggests that many aspects of ecosystem recovery are either slow or incomplete. We examined ecosystem structure-including soil physical and chemical properties, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal (AMF) infectivity and community composition, and plant diversity and community composition-on a chronosequence of pasture-reclaimed surface mines and a non-mined pasture in northern West Virginia. Surface mining and reclamation dramatically altered ecosystem structure. Some aspects of ecosystem structure, including many measures of soil chemistry and infectivity of AMF, returned rapidly to levels found on the non-mined reference site. Other aspects of ecosystem structure, notably soil physical properties and AMF and plant communities, showed incomplete or no recovery over the short-to-medium term. In addition, invasive plants were prevalent on reclaimed mine sites. The results point to the need for investigation on how reclamation practices could minimize establishment of exotic invasive plant species and reduce the long-term impacts of mining on ecosystem structure and function.