Nutrients available in the soil regulate the changes of soil microbial community alongside degradation of alpine meadows in the northeast of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

Highlights: • We assessed changes in vegetation and soil properties and microbial communities. • We examined the vegetation–soil property–soil microbial community interactions. • Alpine meadow degradation affects bacterial and fungal community composition. • Alpine meadow degradation has no impact on bacterial and fungal community diversity. • Soil available nutrients regulate the changes of soil microbial community. The alpine meadow in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau has been seriously degraded due to human activities and climate change in recent decades. Understanding the changes of the soil microbial community in response to the degradation process helps reveal the mechanism underlying the degradation process of alpine meadows. We surveyed and analyzed changes of the vegetation, soil physicochemical properties, and soil microbial community in three degradation levels, namely, non-degradation (ND), moderate degradation (MD), and severe degradation (SD), of the alpine meadows in the northeastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. We found that as the level of degradation increased, plant cover, plant density (PD), above-ground biomass (AGB), plant Shannon-Wiener index (PS), soil water content (SWC), soil organic carbon (SOC), total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP), total potassium (TK), available nitrogen (AN), available phosphorus (AP), and available potassium (AK) decreased significantly, while the soil pH increased from 7.20 to 8.57. Alpine meadow degradation significantly changed the composition of soil bacterial and fungal communities but had no significant impact on the diversity of the microbial communities. Functional predictions indicated that meadow degradation increased the relative abundances of aerobic_chemoheterotrophy, undefined_saprotroph, and plant_pathogen, likely increasing the risk of plant diseases. Redundancy analysis revealed that in ND, the soil microbial community was mainly regulated by PS, PH, PD, SWC, and soil pH. In MD, the soil microbial community was regulated by the soil's available nutrients and SOC. In SD, the soil microbial community was not only regulated by the soil's available nutrients but also influenced by plant characteristics. These results indicate that during alpine meadow degradation, while the changes in the plants and soil environmental factors both affect the composition of the soil microbial community, the influence of soil factors is greater. The soil's available nutrients are the main driving factors regulating the change in the soil microbial community's composition alongside degradation levels.