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Acta Prataculturae Sinica ›› 2015, Vol. 24 ›› Issue (12): 20-28.DOI: 10.11686/cyxb2015035

• Orignal Article • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Effects of nitrogen and phosphorus on the soil nematode community in Tibetan Plateau alpine meadows

WANG Jing1, HU Jing2, DU Guo-Zhen2, *   

  1. 1.State Key Laboratory of Grassland Agro-ecosystems, Lanzhou 730020, China;
    2.School of Life Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China
  • Received:2015-01-20 Online:2015-12-20 Published:2015-12-20

Abstract: Soil nematodes are sensitive to environmental changes and are widely used as indicators of soil conditions. Here we monitored temporal dynamics of the soil nematode community using a multi-level N and P addition experiment in the eastern Tibetan Plateau alpine meadow under grazing conditions. The results showed N and P fertilizer applications slightly improved the diversity (H') and the total number of soil nematodes, but that the maturity index (MI) declined with increases in the fertilizer gradient. The abundance of fungivores and predators decreased whereas bacterivorous nematodes significantly increased after P input. With lower-level applications of N and P fertilizer, the abundance of herbivorous nematodes was low but that of omnivores was high. The abundance of cp-1 (colonizer-persister) and cp-3 group nematodes increased with increases in the fertilizer gradient. The largest abundance of cp-1 and cp-3 appeared in treatments with moderate N and P fertilizer applications. We found a significantly positive relationship between bacterivorous nematodes, cp-1 and available phosphorus. The response of soil nematodes to different kinds of fertilizer is probably caused by grazing.