{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,25]],"date-time":"2026-08-25T09:18:53Z","timestamp":1787649533875,"version":"build-2736575974"},"reference-count":38,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"17","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,23]],"date-time":"2026-08-23T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1787443200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100001809","name":"National Natural Science Foundation of China","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["U2344228"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["U2344228"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100001809","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"award":["U2344228"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["U2344228"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/01h0zpd94","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"name":"Central funds for guiding local science and technology","award":["2026ZYT045"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2026ZYT045"]}]},{"name":"Shandong province science and technology small and medium-sized enterprise innovation ability improvement project","award":["2025TSGCXTHG005"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2025TSGCXTHG005"]}]},{"name":"Science and technology innovation Program of Hunan Province","award":["2025RC4019"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2025RC4019"]}]},{"name":"Sixth Batch of High-level Innovative Talents Project in Guizhou Province","award":["GCC[2022] 007"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["GCC[2022] 007"]}]},{"name":"the National College Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program","award":["202310976056"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["202310976056"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Plants"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Bauxite mining causes severe soil degradation in the ecologically fragile karst region of Southwest China, yet targeted vegetation restoration schemes remain poorly developed. This study aimed to screen promising selected restoration species and preliminarily explore their soil improvement characteristics in karst bauxite mine wastelands through a field observational survey. We investigated six vegetation-soil conditions at 0\u201310 cm topsoil (two-year monocultures of Robinia pseudoacacia, Ligustrum lucidum, Zea mays, Miscanthus sinensis, topsoil from &gt;15-year Z. mays with straw return, and unvegetated bare land), alongside paired 10\u201320 cm subsoil from the same long-term Z. mays stand as a depth-profile reference, and analyzed soil physicochemical properties, enzyme activities, and bacterial\/fungal communities via high-throughput sequencing. Results showed that vegetation cover neutralized strongly acidic mine soil and significantly increased soil organic matter (SOM), total nitrogen (TN), and available nutrients compared with the bare control (p &lt; 0.05). The long-term Z. mays cropland showed the strongest soil nutrient accumulation, with topsoil SOM, available phosphorus, and available potassium, increased by 428.6%, 250.0%, and 65.3%, respectively, relative to the bare control. Notably, the subsoil of long-term Z. mays also maintained high nutrient levels, but its absolute values are not directly comparable with topsoil treatments due to different sampling depths. All vegetation conditions elevated soil enzyme activities and microbial alpha diversity and significantly shifted bacterial and fungal community structure (beta diversity) compared with the control. Several bacterial phyla (including Chloroflexi and Proteobacteria) that have been associated with carbon-cycling functions in prior studies were relatively more abundant in revegetated soils; however, their functional roles in this system remain to be verified. Redundancy analysis identified SOM, TN, and available potassium as key environmental correlates of bacterial community variation. Overall, the long-term crop\u2013straw return pattern shows comprehensive soil improvement effects, providing observational baseline data and reference for ecological restoration of karst bauxite mining areas in Southwest China.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/plants15172560","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,24]],"date-time":"2026-08-24T09:20:02Z","timestamp":1787563202000},"page":"2560","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Effects of Different Vegetation-Soil Conditions on Soil Physicochemical Properties, Enzyme Activities, and Microbial Communities in Bauxite Mine Wasteland of Southwest China"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"15","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0008-6779-6492","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Guangxu","family":"Zhu","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Biology and Environment Engineering, Guiyang University, Guiyang 550005, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Xingyun","family":"Zhao","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Biology and Environment Engineering, Guiyang University, Guiyang 550005, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yunyan","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Biology and Environment Engineering, Guiyang University, Guiyang 550005, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yakun","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Biology and Environment Engineering, Guiyang University, Guiyang 550005, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yunhe","family":"Zhao","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Center for Environmental Remediation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-8552-9485","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Qiang","family":"Tu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Helmholtz International Lab for Anti-Infectives, Shandong University\u2013Helmholtz Institute of Biotechnology, State Key Laboratory of Microbial Technology, Shandong University, Qingdao 266237, China"},{"name":"Institute of Synthetic Biology Industry, Hunan University of Arts and Science, Changde 415000, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,23]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Fidanchevski, E., \u0160ter, K., Mrak, M., Rajacic, M., Koszo, B.D., Ipavec, A., Teran, K., \u017dibret, G., Jovanov, V., and Aluloska, N.S. 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