Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Ecology and Resource Use of the Mongolian Plateau & Inner Mongolia Key Laboratory of Grassland Ecology, School of Ecology and Environment, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot, 010021, China.
Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Ecology and Resource Use of the Mongolian Plateau & Inner Mongolia Key Laboratory of Grassland Ecology, School of Ecology and Environment, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot, 010021, China.
J Environ Manage. 2021 Apr 15;284:112005. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.112005. Epub 2021 Feb 1.
Even though a growing amount of information about the effects of livestock grazing on soil microbial communities have accumulated in literature, less is known about the combined response of plants, soil properties, and their interactions with soil microbes. In this study, we used a seven-year controlled grazing experiment to quantify the response of plant and soil properties and their interactions with soil microbial communities to moderate grazing in a semiarid grassland of Northern China. Our results showed that moderate grazing reduced the richness and diversity of soil microbial communities, as well as weakened community interactions. However, bacterial communities and their linkages were more stable under moderate grazing than fungal communities. Changes in aboveground plant biomass, soil water content, NO-N, and NO/NH ratio dominated grazing effects on soil bacterial communities, while fungal communities were mainly influenced by plant N, soil NO-N, and NO/NH ratio. Changes in the plant community composition played a key role in driving the composition of the fungal community. Our results provide a new insight into the response of soil microbes to moderate grazing, and suggest that above- and belowground communities should be considered to be precise indicators of the state and characteristics of the grassland ecosystem.
尽管关于家畜放牧对土壤微生物群落影响的信息在文献中不断积累，但对于植物、土壤特性及其与土壤微生物相互作用的综合响应却知之甚少。在本研究中，我们使用了为期七年的控制放牧实验，来量化植物和土壤特性及其与土壤微生物群落的相互作用对中国北方半干旱草地中度放牧的响应。研究结果表明，中度放牧减少了土壤微生物群落的丰富度和多样性，并减弱了群落间的相互作用。然而，与真菌群落相比，细菌群落及其连接在中度放牧下更稳定。地上植物生物量、土壤水分、硝态氮和硝态氮/铵态氮比的变化主导了放牧对土壤细菌群落的影响，而真菌群落主要受植物氮、土壤硝态氮和硝态氮/铵态氮比的影响。植物群落组成的变化在驱动真菌群落组成方面起着关键作用。本研究结果为土壤微生物对中度放牧的响应提供了新的认识，并表明地上和地下群落应被视为草地生态系统状态和特征的精确指标。
