Mixed Grazing Enhances Bacterial Diversity and Network Stability More Than Single Grazing in Both Nondegraded and Moderately Degraded Grasslands

作者：Jiazheng Xu, Xuefeng Wu, Hu Jin, Yurong Yang · 发表于：Land Degradation and Development · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1002/ldr.5468 · 被引用次数：2 · 研究领域：Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics、Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies、Legume Nitrogen Fixing Symbiosis

ABSTRACT Soil microbial communities are integral in supporting the sustainability of grassland ecosystems. Livestock grazing exerts varied impacts on soil microbial communities due to distinct grazing behaviors and feeding preferences. However, the effects of livestock diversification on the soil microbial community in moderately degraded grassland compared with nondegraded grassland are still uncertain. To narrow this gap, we carried out a grazing experiment in the eastern Eurasian steppe by altering livestock diversification (nongrazing [NG], cattle grazing alone [CG], sheep grazing alone [SG], and mixed cattle and sheep grazing [MG]) in both nondegraded [ND] and moderately degraded grasslands [MD] for 3 years. We applied high‐throughput sequencing to investigate microbial diversity, community composition, co‐occurrence network structure, and community assembly processes in the topsoil (0–10 cm). Our study revealed that MG significantly enhanced bacterial richness (144.6%, p = 0.005), fungal richness (30%, p = 0.003), network stability and topological properties (5.7% more nodes, and 7.1% higher positive connection ratios) compared to NG in nondegraded grassland. Furthermore, MG had relatively high stability of bacterial networks compared with single grazing in both nondegraded and moderately degraded grasslands. Additionally, the assembly of soil microbial communities in grassland was dominated by stochastic processes, whereas MG reduced the randomness in fungal community ...