Response of soil microbial compositional and functional heterogeneity to grazing exclusion in alpine shrub and meadows in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

ABSTRACT: Soil microorganisms found in shrub-meadow ecosystems are highly heterogeneous and extremely sensitive to grazing, but changes in microbial compositional and functional heterogeneity during grazing exclusion (GE) have been largely overlooked compared to community diversity. We collected soil samples from heavily grazed plots (6.0 sheep/ha) and GE plots (matrix and patch areas in both), and used a combination of next-generation sequencing, vegetation features, and the associated soil property data to investigate the effect of GE on the composition and function of microbial communities (bacteria fungi, and archaea) in 0-10 cm soils. Regarding community composition, the proportions of species in bacteria, fungi, and archaea were 97.3, 2.3, and 0.4%, respectively. GE significantly affected the

SUBMITTER: Wang S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9748428 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature