DOI: 10.5061/dryad.ns1rn8q0q
title: Data from: Plant biodiversity responds more strongly to climate warming and anthropogenic activities than microbial biodiversity in the Qinghai-Tibetan alpine grasslands

description: Biodiversity serves as the fundamental underpinning for ecosystem
 functions and services. As a result of human-induced global change, there
 is a growing awareness of the substantial alterations in terrestrial
 aboveground biodiversity, particularly within alpine regions. However, it
 remains uncertain whether belowground biodiversity will exhibit similar
 responses, both in terms of magnitude and manner, to anthropogenic global
 changes as aboveground biodiversity. Here, we conducted a meta-analysis to
 assess the impacts of warming, nutrient addition, and grazing on plant and
 soil microbial biodiversity in alpine grasslands on the Qinghai-Tibetan
 Plateau, which are known to be climate-sensitive and vulnerable. The
 analysis included 819 experimental observations from 152 studies, focusing
 on species richness, Shannon diversity, and Pielou’s evenness. We found
 that plant biodiversity exhibited greater sensitivity to climate warming
 and anthropogenic activities compared to soil microbial biodiversity.
 Specifically, plant richness and Shannon diversity were reduced by warming
 and nutrient addition, while plant evenness was increased by grazing.
 However, only microbial richness was increased by grazing and microbial
 evenness was increased by warming slightly. The responses of biodiversity
 to climate warming and anthropogenic activities were modulated by multiple
 factors. Specifically, the negative effects of warming on plant
 biodiversity were more pronounced in long-term experiments under warmer or
 drier environmental conditions. The negative effects of nitrogen addition
 on biodiversity were enhanced by the intensity and duration of nitrogen
 treatment. Appropriate intensity and frequency of grazing were beneficial
 to sustaining plant biodiversity. Soil microbial biodiversity was weakly
 regulated, where bacterial Shannon diversity was more sensitive to
 nutrient addition, while fungal species richness was sensitive to grazing.
 Synthesis: Our findings reveal a mismatch between aboveground plant and
 belowground microbial biodiversity in response to climate warming and
 anthropogenic activities in alpine grasslands, with plant biodiversity
 being more sensitive. In the context of future global change, plant
 biodiversity may be at greater risk than soil microbial biodiversity. In
 addition, biodiversity responses of different experimental and
 environmental conditions should be distinguished, and more attention is
 needed on biodiversity conservation in alpine steppe, or areas with warmer
 and drier environmental conditions, high-intensity fertilization or heavy
 grazing. 
description: We searched the literature for the responses of biodiversity to
 warming, nutrient addition, and grazing from 1900 to 2022 in the Web of
 Science and China National Knowledge Infrastructure. The search string is
 the following key-word combinations:(((tibet*) AND (grassland OR meadow OR
 steppe) AND (diversity OR richness) AND (plant OR micro* OR bacteria* OR
 fung*)) AND ((warming OR increasing temperature OR elevated temperature OR
 climate change) OR (fertiliz* OR nutrient addition OR nitrogen addition OR
 phosphorus addition) OR (graz* OR livestock grazing))).
 We screened studies using the following criteria: (i) based on
 field manipulative experiments containing control and treatment groups;
 (ii) contained at least one of the following biodiversity indices:
 richness (species richness for plants and operational taxonomic unit for
 soil microbes), Shannon–Wiener diversity index, and Pielou’s evenness
 index; (iii) included only natural grassland ecosystems, excluding
 farmland and wetland ecosystems; (iv) included only bacterial and fungal
 community diversity, excluding special functional groups except arbuscular
 mycorrhizal fungi (AMF). We extracted the mean, standard deviation,
 standard error, and sample size from the tables or extracted these
 numerical values from digitized graphs using Engauge Digitizer (v.10.8).
 After the selection process (See PRISMA in Fig.S1), a total of 152
 published articles and 819 observations were included in this
 meta-analysis. We also collected data defining
 experimental conditions (the duration, intensity, and method of
 treatment), grassland types (alpine meadow and alpine steppe),
 environmental conditions (mean annual temperature (MAT), mean annual
 precipitation (MAP), and altitude) and taxa (bacteria and fungi), from the
 original study or papers cited in that study. The WorldClim database
 (www.worldclim.com) was used for supplementation according to the
 longitude and latitude of study sites if MAT and MAP were not
 reported.
description: ## Plant biodiversity responds more strongly to climate warming and
 anthropogenic activities than microbial biodiversity in the
 Qinghai-Tibetan alpine grasslands ## Description of the data and file
 structure This ReadMe file accompanies the data for the article accepted
 by the Journal of Ecology. The data file is named (Supplement_Data.xlsx).
 The data file contains four sheets: "ReadMe",
 "Warming", "Nutrient addition", and
 "Grazing". Abbreviations with simple description as follow, and
 a full description of these data can be found in sheet "ReadMe".
 Type: Treatment and aboveground/belowground Study_ID: Study number Obs:
 Observation number Author: Author of the article Title: Article title
 Pubyear: The year when the article published Latitude: Latitude of the
 experimental site Longitude: Longitude of the experimental site Altitude:
 Altitude of the experimental site MAT: Mean annual temperature MAP: Mean
 annual precipitation Ecotype: Ecosystem type Warming_method: Warming
 method Warming_magnitude: Warming magnitude Warming_duration: Warming
 duration Fertilization_type: Nutrient type added in the experiment
 Fertilization_intensity: Nutrient addition amount Fertilization_duration:
 Nutrient addition duration Herbivore_type: Herbivore type for grazing
 Grazing_regime: Grazing regimes Grazing_intensity: Grazing intensity
 Grazing_duration: Grazing duration Taxa: Microbial taxa n_c: Sample size
 from the control plots n_t: Sample size from the treatment plots lnRR_R:
 lnRR of Richness v_R: Variance of Richness lnRR_H: lnRR of Shannon-Wiener
 diversity v_H: Variance of Shannon-Wiener diversity lnRR_E: lnRR of
 Pielou's evenness v_E: Variance of Pielou's evenness Missing
 data are indicated as NA throughout the dataset. If you have queries about
 the data please contact Zijian Shangguan at Peking University, China
 (sgzijian95@pku.edu.cn).