Effects of enhanced UV-B radiation on the diversity and activity of soil microorganism of alpine meadow ecosystem in Qinghai–Tibet Plateau

The effects of enhanced UV-B radiation on abundance, community composition and the total microbial activity of soil bacteria in alpine meadow ecosystem of Qinghai–Tibet Plateau were investigated. Traditional counting and 16S rRNA gene sequencing were used to investigate the culturable bacteria and their composition in soil, meanwhile the total microbial activity was measured by microcalorimetry. The population of soil culturable bacteria was slightly reduced with the enhanced UV-B radiation in both of the two depths, 2.46 × 106 CFU/g in upper layer (0–10 cm), 1.44 × 106 CFU/g in under layer (10–20 cm), comparing with the control (2.94 × 106 CFU/g in upper layer, 1.65 × 106 CFU/g in under layer), although the difference was not statistically significant (P > 0.05). However, the bacteria diversity decreased obviously due to enhanced UV-B, the number of species for upper layer was decreased from 20 to 13, and from 16 to 13 for the lower layer. The distribution of species was also quite different between the two layers. Another obvious decrease induced by enhanced UV-B radiation was in the total soil microbial activities, which was represented by the microbial growth rate constant (k) in this study. The results indicated that the culturable bacteria community composition and the total activity of soil microbes have been considerably changed by the enhanced UV-B radiation.