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Aim: We explore long‐term plant community responses 17 years after a one‐time application of biosolids (0, 50, 100, 150, 200, 250 dry Mg/ha) to determine: (a) whether the land application of biosolids on mine tailings, seeded with an agronomic grass‐legume mixture, affects long‐term plant community responses; (b) how application rates and soil texture influenced plant community responses and community structure; and (c) whether native plant species have colonized and contributed to the reclaimed plant community. Location: Two tailings deposits (sand and silt loam) generated by a copper–molybdenum (Cu–Mo) mine in southern British Columbia, Canada. Methods: Plant communities were sampled by visual evaluation of cover percentage to the lowest taxonomic level possible. Vegetation surveys were completed on two mine tailings deposits within the storage facility that have different soil textures (sand and silt loam). Results: Results showed that the interaction of biosolids applications and soil texture impacted multiple community plant responses, including increasing plant cover at both sites, and increasing richness, evenness and diversity at the sandy site. Biosolids application enhanced the performance of spontaneously established species (volunteer species) and non‐native/naturalized grasses. Conclusion: Our study demonstrated that biosolids application facilitates ecological succession by enhancing the establishment of non‐native volunteer species over the long term, which increases vegetative cover on both deposits and promotes plant communities' diversity on sites with sandy soil texture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Questions: Biosolids are a source of nutrient‐rich organic material that can be used to improve degraded or disturbed soils. Research on vegetation responses to the land application of biosolids has increased in the past 20 years, but there is no consensus on how plant communities respond to biosolids applications. What factors influence productivity and vegetative cover following biosolids application for grassland reclamation? How does the addition of biosolids impact plant community responses? Location: Global, but predominantly North America and Europe. Methods: To explore vegetative responses following biosolids application, we used a global systematic review and meta‐analysis of 59 articles. Our meta‐analysis used the log response ratio (LRR) as an effect size for productivity, total cover, species richness, diversity and exotic species abundance and explored covariates addressing various site characteristics and reclamation strategies. Results: We found that across sites, the land application of biosolids significantly increased productivity and cover but had no significant overall effect on species richness, Shannon diversity or exotic species abundance on degraded lands. These increases in the LRR for productivity and vegetative cover were lower on sites that experienced a fire prior to biosolids application. Climatic variables like mean annual temperature were shown to alter the response of vegetative cover, where warmer sites tended to have more positive responses to biosolids. Seeding was found to increase plant cover but decrease species richness early in the reclamation process. Conclusions: This area of research is growing; most of the publications we used come from the last 20 years and were mostly conducted in North America and Europe. While we can build on the present literature, there is clearly room for more research to ensure the process of reclaiming degraded ecosystems using biosolids results in desired plant communities, e.g. high native species diversity. Future research should consistently report biosolids chemical characteristics as well as application and processing methodologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]