ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Microbiological Chemistry and Geomicrobiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1594877
This article is part of the Research TopicMicrobial Solutions for Restoring Depleted SoilsView all 11 articles
From arid deserts to mesic meadows: Divergent pathways regulating microbial respiration under grassland enclosure
Provisionally accepted
- Xinjiang Agricultural University, Ürümqi, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
As a pivotal restoration strategy for alleviating grassland degradation, long-term enclosure practices effectively eliminate livestock disturbances while facilitating ecosystem self-recovery. Understanding the dynamics of soil microbial respiration under enclosure management is crucial, as it provides a scientific foundation for optimizing grassland utilization and contributes to global research on the terrestrial carbon cycle. We conducted a comparative study across three distinct enclosed grassland ecosystems in Xinjiang, China: temperate desert, temperate steppe, and mountain meadow. Through analyzing microbial community structure, diversity, assembly processes, and respiration rates between 9-year enclosed and grazed areas, three key advancements emerged: (1) Enclosure implementation led to a marked improvement in soil resource availability, triggering microbial community shifts from oligotrophic to eutrophic states with substantial biodiversity increases (bacterial diversity: 2.2-14%; fungal diversity: 12.4-27.2%); (2) Divergent assembly mechanisms were observed where surface soil bacterial communities (0-5 cm depth) transitioned from 55.6% to 100% deterministic processes, directly contrasting with fungal communities that shifted from 11.1% to 55.6% stochastic dominance; (3) Partial Least Squares Path Modeling (PLS-PM) revealed distinct ecosystem-specific regulatory mechanisms underpinning reduced microbial respiration: soil property-induced microbial metabolic trade-offs enhanced carbon use efficiency in temperate desert (R²=0.951), plant-mediated microbial assembly processes promoted efficient carbon cycling in temperate steppe (R²=0.455), and plant-driven suppression of microbial biomass dominated respiratory reduction in mountain meadow (R²=0.883). The research establishes that enclosure achieves carbon sequestration through divergent pathways across ecosystems, providing critical insights for optimizing grassland management strategies and enhancing climate change mitigation efforts.
Keywords: Enclosure, Grassland types, Microbial assembly process, microbial respiration, Partial least squares path modeling (PLS-PM)
Received: 17 Mar 2025; Accepted: 29 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Julihaiti, Dong, Zhou, Nie, Jiang and An. 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: Yiqiang Dong, xjdyq1210@163.com
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.