PubMed · 2026-07-07
After mining, alpine grassland soils on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau gradually recover their microscopic food webs, but the usual diversity counts miss most of that recovery. Tracking how soil nematodes interact with each other, not just how many species exist, reveals that long-term restoration builds richer ecological networks driven by soil pH, phosphorus, and residual chromium contamination.
Alpha-diversity indices (Shannon, Chao1, Pielou's evenness) showed no significant differences across short-term restoration, long-term restoration, and native vegetation, but community composition and trophic structure shifted markedly.
Long-term restoration sites had higher network connectivity, clustering coefficient, and interaction density than both short-term restoration and native vegetation sites.
Soil pH and phosphorus were the strongest predictors of community composition and network complexity; chromium exerted its effects indirectly by altering soil physicochemistry and plant root biomass.