The Effects of Plant-Soil-Enzyme Interactions on Plant Composition, Biomass and Diversity of Alpine Meadows in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau

Table 2

Microbial biomass C of soil samples in four alpine meadow plant communities (Mean ± SD). Data in the table were mean values of 3 years. Numbers in parentheses indicate standard deviation (𝑛=6). Data from different communities followed by the same letters were not significantly different at 0.05 levels (capital letters indicate different soil layers within the same community while small letters indicate the same soil layer in different communities; Duncan’s multiple range tests). 𝐶_mic: Soil microbial biomass carbon; 𝑄_mic: Soil microbial quotient. Kobresia humilis meadow = KHM; Kobresia pygmaea meadow = KPM; Kobresia tibetica swamp meadow = KTS; Potentilla fruticosa scrub = PFS.

Community	𝐶mic (g C kg^−1 soil)				𝑄mic
	Depth (cm)				Depth (cm)
	0–10	10–20	20–40	0–40	0–10	10–20	20–40	0–40
KHM	0.58 A b (0.01)	0.28 B b (0.01)	0.19 C b (0.01)	0.35 b (0.01)	0.41 A a (0.13)	0.33 B a (0.15)	0.29 C a (0.04)	0.36a (0.09)
KPM	0.52 A b (0.03)	0.29 B b (0.02)	0.18 C b (0.01)	0.33 b (0.02)	0.33 A a (0.07)	0.28 B a (0.07)	0.25 B a (0.05)	0.30a (0.06)
KTS	2.99 A a (0.36)	1.78 B a (0.26)	0.38 C a (0.12)	1.72 a (0.24)	0.023 A b (0.003)	0.018 Bb (0.005)	0.016 B b (0.002)	0.018b(0.002)
PFS	0.31A c (0.01)	0.21B b (0.02)	0.12 C b (0.02)	0.21b (0.02)	0.39 A a (0.05)	0.31 B a (0.06)	0.22 C a (0.05)	0.32a (0.04)