[Changes of soil enzyme activities and nutrients across different succession stages of grazing alpine Kobresia grassland.]

The variation of soil enzyme activity and relevance with soil nutrients was examined in multistable grazing alpine Kobresia grassland, including Gramineae-Kobresia humilis community, K. humilis community, K. pygmaea community at thickened stage, K. pygmaea community at cracked stage and forb-black soil type secondary bare land. The results showed that the vegetation coverage and aboveground biomass successively decreased with degenerative succession. The belowground biomass was the highest in the K. pygmaea community at thickened and cracked stages. The activities of soil sucrase, urease, cellulase, alkaline phosphatase and aryl sulfatase were higher at the surface soil layer (0-10 cm) than those at the subsurface soil layer (10-20 cm), while the pattern of chitinase activity was contrary. The activities of cellulase, alkaline phosphatase and aryl sulfatase were the highest in the Gramineae-K. humilis community and the lowest at the forb-black soil type secondary bare land, and they slightly increased during the thickened stage of K. pygmaea community. Chitinase activity was relatively high at the middle three stages, while urease and sucrase activity had an obvious increase in the forb-black soil type secondary bare land. Soil moisture, ammonium, alkali-hydrolyzable nitrogen, total nitrogen, total carbon and organic carbon successively decreased with degenerative succession, whereas the concentrations of nitrate and available phosphorus increased at the latter two succession stages. The activities of the other enzymes, except for chitinase, were significantly positively correlated with the soil available phosphorus, ammonium, alkali-hydrolyzed nitrogen, total carbon, and organic carbon, and negatively correlated with soil pH. The activities of cellulose, alkaline phosphatase and aryl sulfatase were significantly positively correlated with soil moisture and total nitrogen. The main factors affecting soil enzyme activity were available phosphorus and ammonium. Soil enzymes showed different evolutionary trends influenced by grazing degradation succession in the alpine grassland, with a synergistic effect with soil nut-rients. Moreover, severely degraded extreme environments may stimulate soil enzyme activities related to nitrogen and carbon transformation.