Study on soil carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus acquisition enzyme activity, and microbial entropy in Stipa breviflora desert grassland of Inner Mongolia

The desert grassland is a critical part of the grassland ecosystem in Inner Mongolia, which is severely degraded due to extreme climatic conditions and long-term human disturbance. Microbial entropy is a key factor indicating the utilization of nutrients such as carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus by microorganisms. Additionally, soil enzymes are an important driving force of ecosystem material cycling and play an important role in soil nutrient transformation. At present, there exist few studies in the various ecosystems on the coupled relationship between microbial entropy and soil enzymes in different grazing landscapes. In this study, soil physicochemical properties and soil microbial entropy were analyzed using short-flowered needlegrass desert grassland in Inner Mongolia. In this study, we aimed to investigate the characteristics of soil carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus acquisition enzymes, and soil microbial entropy, and their influencing factors under different grazing intensities. The results showed that: 1) the soil microbial entropies of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, β-glucosidase, cellobiose hydrolase, β-N-acetylamino glucosidase, leucine aminopeptidase, and alkaline phosphatase showed a decreasing trend with increasing grazing intensity. 2) soil carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus acquisition enzymes, and soil microbial entropy carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus all showed a strongly significant positive correlation (P < 0.05). 3) A redundancy analysis showed that soil microbial entropy phosphorus, soil saturated water content, and microbial entropy carbon were the key drivers of soil enzyme activity. This study provides a theoretical basis for exploring the mechanism of long-term grazing nutrient cycling and grassland ecosystem restoration in the Stipa breviflora desert grassland of Inner Mongolia.