Exploring the feedback of the soil microbial community and associated processes to global warming represents a major global challenge. To date, the focus has been placed on the direct effects of warming on soil microbial communities, overlooking how concurrent changes in plant communities may mediate these effects. Additionally, few studies have examined long-term effects of warming in more than one environmental context. In the present study, we conducted a long-term simulated warming experiment to investigate how changes to the plant community within two different environmental contexts affect the responses of soil microorganisms and their respiration to warming. We analyzed the abundance, diversity, and community composition of plants and soil microbes, in addition to soil microbial interaction networks and soil microbial respiration, in two typical ecosystems of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau. Following long-term warming, the soil microbial composition, structure, and interactions changed, and the shifts depended on the aboveground plant type. Specifically, the co-occurring networks containing different microbial communities tended to be more complex in a shrubland than in a grassland after warming, leading to higher carbon use efficiency. Additionally, long-term warming changed the structure of soil microbial communities, increasing the relative abundances of oligotrophic taxa in the shrubland but not in the grassland. The shifts in community structure and interaction patterns could be explained by vegetation community attributes, highlighting the strong effect of plants on soil microbial responses. These plant-mediated effects on community structure and interactions subsequently could explain changes in soil microbial respiration rates. Microbial respiration showed a positive response to elevated temperature in the grassland but no response to temperature in the shrubland. These results indicate that interactions between soil microbial communities and plant communities determine how soil microbes respond to global warming. Therefore, future research on soil microbial community composition and associated carbon feedbacks to the climate change should include plant-mediated effects, which can provide a scientific basis for effectively mitigating global warming.

探索土壤微生物群落和相关过程对全球变暖的反馈是一项重大的全球挑战。迄今为止，重点已放在变暖对土壤微生物群落的直接影响上，而忽略了植物群落同时发生的变化如何介导这些影响。此外，很少有研究在一个以上的环境中研究变暖的长期影响。在本研究中，我们进行了长期的模拟变暖实验，以研究两种不同环境环境下植物群落的变化如何影响土壤微生物的响应及其对变暖的呼吸作用。除了土壤微生物相互作用网络和土壤微生物呼吸作用之外，我们还分析了植物和土壤微生物的丰度，多样性和群落组成，在青藏高原的两个典型生态系统中。长期变暖后，土壤微生物组成，结构和相互作用发生了变化，其变化取决于地上植物的类型。具体而言，变暖后灌木丛中的同时存在的微生物群落比草地更复杂，从而导致更高的碳利用效率。此外，长期的变暖改变了土壤微生物群落的结构，增加了灌木丛而非草地的贫营养类群的相对丰度。群落结构和相互作用模式的变化可以用植被群落属性来解释，突出了植物对土壤微生物响应的强大影响。这些植物介导的对群落结构和相互作用的影响随后可以解释土壤微生物呼吸速率的变化。微生物呼吸对草地中升高的温度表现出积极的反应，但对灌木丛中的温度没有反应。这些结果表明，土壤微生物群落和植物群落之间的相互作用决定了土壤微生物如何应对全球变暖。因此，关于土壤微生物群落组成和碳对气候变化的反馈的未来研究应包括植物介导的作用，这可以为有效缓解全球变暖提供科学依据。微生物呼吸对草地中升高的温度表现出积极的反应，但对灌木丛中的温度没有反应。这些结果表明，土壤微生物群落和植物群落之间的相互作用决定了土壤微生物如何应对全球变暖。因此，关于土壤微生物群落组成和碳对气候变化的反馈的未来研究应包括植物介导的作用，这可以为有效缓解全球变暖提供科学依据。微生物呼吸对草地中升高的温度表现出积极的反应，但对灌木丛中的温度没有反应。这些结果表明，土壤微生物群落和植物群落之间的相互作用决定了土壤微生物如何应对全球变暖。因此，关于土壤微生物群落组成和碳对气候变化的反馈的未来研究应包括植物介导的作用，这可以为有效缓解全球变暖提供科学依据。