Animal Activities of the Key Herbivore Plateau Pika (Ochotona curzoniae) on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau Affect Grassland Microbial Networks and Ecosystem Functions.

ABSTRACT: Plateau pikas (Ochotona curzoniae) are high-altitude model animals and famous "ecosystem engineers" on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Pika activities may accelerate the degradation of alpine meadows. Nevertheless, little is known about the responses of bacterial, fungal, and archaeal communities, and ecosystem multifunctionality to pika perturbations. To address this question, we studied the impacts of only pika disturbance and combined disturbance (pika disturbance and grazing) on ecological networks of soil microbial communities and ecosystem multifunctionality. Our results demonstrated that Proteobacteria, Ascomycota, and Crenarchaeota were dominant in bacteria, fungi, and archaea, respectively. Bacteria, fungi, and archaea were all influenced by the combined disturbance of grazing a

SUBMITTER: Yang J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9298508 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature