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Updated: Jan 12, 2026

Measuring Phosphorus Release in Laboratory Microcosms for Water Quality Assessment
Published on: July 22, 2019
Multitrophic biodiversity drives soil phosphorus mobilization in subtropical ecosystems
Xionghui Liao1, Jie Zhao2, Tibor Magura3
1Institute of Subtropical Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changsha, Hunan 410125, China; Huanjiang Agriculture Ecosystem Observation and Research Station of Guangxi, Guangxi Key Laboratory of Karst Ecological Processes and Services, Huanjiang Observation and Research Station for Karst Ecosystems, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Huanjiang, Guangxi 547100, China.
Introduction:
The phosphorus (P) mobilization capacity of plants and microbes is hierarchically constrained by climatic drivers, land-use types, lithological properties, and consumer-mediated trophic cascades.
Objectives And Methods:
We established a latitudinal transect across contrasting lithologies (carbonate vs. siliciclastic sedimentary rocks) in subtropical southwest China to investigate how multitrophic biodiversity and trophic interactions affect soil P mobilization during cropland-to-forest succession.
Results:
Cropland conversion into forest significantly increased soil labile P fractions by 43.8% in karst regions, but decreased soil moderately labile and stable P fractions by 62.6-79.1% and 34.8-36.6%, respectively, in both karst and non-karst regions. Multitrophic biodiversity and P mobilization capacity were significantly greater in karst than non-karst regions. Climate warming amplified trophic cascading effects on soil P mobilization capacity mediated by phoD-harboring bacteria in forests via increasing alkaline phosphatase activity. Karst forests developed efficient P mobilization-uptake coordination to overcome calcium/magnesium-induced P chelation constraints through tightly coupled multitrophic interactions. The multitrophic network relationships are conducive to plant P uptake, but vulnerable to species losses caused by anthropogenic disturbances (e.g., tillage and deforestation) in karst ecosystems.
Conclusion:
Our findings provide a framework linking lithology-mediated P mobilization with trophic interactions to alleviate P limitation in subtropical ecosystems under global change.
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