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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Nutrition
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1549867
Effects of simulated litter inputs on plant-microbe carbon pool tradeoffs in degraded alpine meadows
Provisionally accepted- Qinghai University, Xining, China
In order to study the response of plant-microbial biomass carbon pool trade-offs in degraded alpine meadows to litter inputs, we investigated the effects of different levels of litter additions on the carbon pools of alpine meadows plant aboveground communities, the carbon pools of the root system, and the total carbon pools of the plant community and the microbial biomass carbon pools in the soil, and clarified the variable factors that affect the balance of the plant-microbial biomass carbon pools and the process of influencing the trade-offs. The results showed that: (1) litter inputs had a positive effect on plant carbon pools, and the aboveground community carbon pools, root carbon pools, total plant community carbon pools and soil microbial biomass carbon pools of alpine meadows were all maximized in the T3 treatment. (2) the trade-off analyses showed that the trade-off relationships of ungrazed alpine meadows TPCP-MBCP in the following order under different levels of litter treatments: T1(0.0414)＞ T2 (0.0269) > T0 (0.0086) > T3 (0.0012), the trade-off relationship of TPCP-MBCP in lightly grazed alpine meadows was in the order of T2 (0.0494) > T3 (0.0140) > T0 (0.0097) > T1 (0.002), and the tradeoff relationship of TPCP-MBCP in moderately grazed alpine meadows was in the order of T3 (0.0383) > T1 (0.0307) > T2 (0.0196) > T0 (0.0005). ( 3) propensity analysis showed that the TPCP-MBCP trade-offs tended to favor MBCP under ungrazed, lightly grazed and moderately grazed meadows under the T1 treatment. (4) structural equation modeling showed that RB and APC were positively correlation, RCP was significantly negatively correlated with the TPCP-MBCP trade-off in lightly grazed grassland (P<0.05), and MBC was significantly positively correlated with the TPCP-MBCP trade-off in moderately grazed grassland (P<0.05). This study can help to optimize the grazing management measures, predict the changes of carbon pools in alpine meadows and clarify the transfer and storage of carbon pools between plants and microorganisms, so as to provide a theoretical basis for the study of carbon pools in degraded alpine meadows.
Keywords: Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, Alpine meadow, Microbial biomass carbon, Carbon pool, trade-offs
Received: 22 Dec 2024; Accepted: 12 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Lin, De, Xiang, Feng, Li and Wei. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Kejia De, Qinghai University, Xining, China
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