Effects of enclosing on soil microbial community diversity and soil stoichiometric characteristics in a degraded alpine meadow

doi:10.13287/j.1001-9332.201901.009

Abstract

Abstract: Enclosing is an effective rehabilitation measure for degraded pastures that mimics natural recovery of vegetation. To examine the interaction between biotic and abiotic in lightly degraded and enclosing grasslands is helpful for a clear understanding of the structure and function of grassland ecosystem. In this study, soil microbial community and soil stoichiometric characteristics in lightly degraded and 10-year enclosing alpine meadows were studied by high-throughput sequencing and Biolog-Eco methods. The results showed that compared with lightly degraded grassland, the concentration of soil NH₄⁺-N in the enclosing grassland increased significantly, while total K (TK) dramatically decreased. There was no obvious variation in soil total organic carbon (TOC), total N (TN), total P (TP), NO₃^--N, available P (AP), available K (AK), microbial biomass C (MBC) and microbial biomass N (MBN). The soil microbial biomass C/N was significantly enhanced. The carbon metabolic capabilities of soil microbes in different soil layers of alpine mea-dow were obviously increased with the prolonged incubation time, but there was no significant difference between lightly degraded and enclosed meadows. The OTUs of soil bacteria was significantly higher than that of fungi in alpine meadow. The microbial similarity between lightly degraded and fencing grasslands was 27.0%-32.7%. Enclosing significantly increased the fungal relative richness of Ascomycota, Zygomycetes and Chytridiomycota, while simultaneously decreased the rela-tive abundance of Basidiomycetes. Compared with lightly degraded meadow, the bacterial relative richness of Acidobacteria significantly decreased in enclosing meadow. The community composition of soil fungi and bacteria greatly varied among different soil layers. There was significant difference of fungal community composition in the upper soils between lightly degraded and enclosed grassland. The soil bacterial community diversity was greatly affected by soil TN and AK, while the fungal community diversity was significantly affected by plant aboveground biomass. Soil AK produced great influence on soil microbial carbon source utilization capacity. Generally, long-term grazing exclosure had no significant effects on soil nutrients and soil microbial community diversity of lightly degraded grassland and thus would waste the pasture resources, whereas appropriate grazing could maintain the sustainable utilization of grassland.

Key words: enclosure, high-throughput sequencing., soil microbial diversity, metabolic function, degraded alpine meadow

YIN Ya-li, WANG Yu-qin, LI Shi-xiong, LIU Yan, ZHAO Wen, MA Yu-shou, BAO Gen-sheng. Effects of enclosing on soil microbial community diversity and soil stoichiometric characteristics in a degraded alpine meadow[J]. Chinese Journal of Applied Ecology, 2019, 30(1): 127-136.

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