Contrasting responses of soil microbial biomass and extracellular enzyme activity along an elevation gradient on the eastern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau

作者：Shun Liu, Gexi Xu, Huanhuan Chen, Miaomiao Zhang, Xiangwen Cao, Miao Chen, Jian Chen, Qiuhong Feng, Zuomin Shi · 发表于：Frontiers in Microbiology · 年份：2023 · DOI：10.3389/fmicb.2023.974316 · 被引用次数：28 · 研究领域：Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics、Microbial Community Ecology and Physiology、Climate change and permafrost

Soil microbial community composition and extracellular enzyme activity are two main drivers of biogeochemical cycling. Knowledge about their elevational patterns is of great importance for predicting ecosystem functioning in response to climate change. Nevertheless, there is no consensus on how soil microbial community composition and extracellular enzyme activity vary with elevation, and little is known about their elevational variations on the eastern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, a region sensitive to global change. We therefore investigated the soil microbial community composition using phospholipid fatty acids (PLFAs) analysis, and enzyme activities at 2,820 m (coniferous and broadleaved mixed forest), 3,160 m (dark coniferous forest), 3,420 m (alpine dwarf forest), and 4,280 m (alpine shrubland) above sea level. Our results showed that soil microbial community composition and extracellular enzyme activities changed significantly along the elevational gradient. Biomass of total microbes, bacteria, and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi at the highest elevation were the significantly lowest among the four elevations. In contrast, extracellular enzyme activities involved in carbon (C)-, nitrogen (N)-, and phosphorus (P)- acquiring exhibited the maximum values at the highest elevation. Total nutrients and available nutrients, especially P availability jointly explained the elevational pattern of soil microbial community, while the elevational variation of extracellular enzyme activiti...