Abstract: To clarify the effects of grazing styles on the soil microbial community in the alpine meadow, we explored the changes of soil microbial community structure in the alpine meadow located in Naqu district of Tibet Autonomous Region by analyzing the soil  chemical properties and phospholipid fatty acids (PLFAs). The results showed that the contents of soil total organic carbon, total phosphate and nitrate nitrogen under the different grazing styles followed the trend of 7-year rest grazing > free grazing > grazing prohibition. Except for the ratio of fungal PLFAs/bacterial PLFAs, total PLFAs, the bacterial PLFAs, the fungal PLFAs, the gram negative bacterial and the gram positive bacterial PLFAs over the different grazing types were in the order of 7-year rest grazing > 5-year grazing prohibition > 7-year and 9-year grazing prohibition. The principal component analysis (PCA) presented that the first principal component (PC1=74.6%) was mainly composed of monounsaturated fatty acids, polyunsaturated fatty acids and branched fatty acids, and the second principal component (PC2=13.2%) was mainly composed of saturated fatty acids and some monounsaturated fatty acids. Total PLFAs content was significantly positively correlated with microbial biomass carbon content. Compared with grazing prohibition,  fallow grazing was best for the alpine meadow in Naqu district, and free grazing with light intensity was good for the alpine meadow.