Abstract: This study was based on the isolation and identification of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi collected from the alpine Stipa steppe of north Tibet, and focused on the influence of soil texture, pH, organic matter, and available P on the spore density, isolation frequency, relative abundance, importance value, species diversity, and species evenness of the AM fungi. In the rhizosphere soil of the steppe, a total of 15 species AM fungi were isolated and identified, including 9 species of Glomus, 6 species of Acaulospora, and 1 species of Scutellospora. Among them, Glomus and Acaulospora were the dominant genera, and Glomus claroideum and Acaulospora laevis were the dominant species. In the soils with different texture, the spore density, isolation frequency, relative abundance, and importance value of the AM fungi all showed a trend of Glomus > Acaulospora > Scutellospora. Soil pH value had no significant effects on the species composition of AM fungi. However, the isolation frequency, relative abundance, and importance value of Glomus and Acaulospora showed an increasing trend with increasing soil pH, while Scutellospora showed the contrary trend. In the soils with different organic matter content, the spore density of AM fungi all showed a trend of Glomus > Acaulospora > Scutellospora, while the distribution of AM fungi had no definite pattern. The species richness and spore density of AM fungi were less affected by the soil available P content, but the species diversity and evenness showed an increasing trend with the increasing content of soil available P.

Key words: Stipa steppe, diversity of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi, affecting factor, Tibet Plateau, nitrogen use efficiency (NUE), subtraction method, ¹⁵N labeling method, substituted calculating method, comprehensive evaluation index system.