Soil microbial communities face the combined pressures of climate change and biodiversity loss, yet how these stressors interact to shape ecosystem function remains a critical uncertainty. To investigate this, we established a constructed grassland plant community and conducted a fully factorial experiment manipulating plant diversity (1, 3, and 6 species), temperature (ambient, +2 °C), and precipitation (ambient, +50%). High-throughput 16S rRNA gene sequencing revealed that plant diversity exerted a stronger influence on soil bacterial community structure than did warming or precipitation changes. Beta diversity analysis revealed a distinct clustering of bacterial communities corresponding to the plant diversity gradient. This shift was characterized by a consistent enrichment of the metabolically versatile genus Sphingomonas in medium-diversity plots that experienced elevated precipitation, suggesting a predicted potential for enhanced organic matter decomposition. Despite overall stability in alpha diversity, the interaction between plant diversity and warming significantly modulated bacterial diversity and dominance patterns. Our findings highlight that plant diversity plays a key role in mediating soil bacterial responses to simulated climate factors in the short term. Incorporating these plant–soil feedback mechanisms into ecological models appears crucial for advancing predictions of ecosystem dynamics under future climate conditions.
Understanding spatiotemporal changes in landscape ecological risk is essential for regional ecological security and sustainable land management, particularly in environmentally sensitive areas. Using land-use data from five time points (2000, 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2020) together with topographic, climatic, vegetation, and socioeconomic data, we assessed landscape ecological risk dynamics in Xinzhou City, a typical ecologically sensitive region in the middle Yellow River Basin. We integrated a landscape ecological risk assessment model, spatial autocorrelation analysis, and an optimal-parameter geographical detector (OPGD) to identify the spatiotemporal patterns and key drivers of ecological risk. Built-up land expanded by 131.47% over the study period, while cropland and grassland both contracted. Land-use change was dominated by bidirectional conversion between cropland and grassland, alongside a net shift of both to built-up land. Overall, ecological risk declined: high- and relatively high-risk areas decreased by 1354.15 km2. Spatially, the pattern remained stable, with higher risk in basins and lower risk in mountainous regions, although the trend varied across phases. Risk exhibited significant spatial clustering: low–low clusters remained stable in mountainous ecological source areas, whereas high–high clusters persisted in basin agricultural areas. Elevation was the dominant factor in spatial risk differentiation. Combined natural and anthropogenic factors shaped the overall risk pattern. Despite the regional decline, urbanization-induced disturbance remains the principal driver of local risk increases. Our findings demonstrate the value of coupling long-term land-use data with OPGD to evaluate the relative and interactive contributions of terrain constraints and anthropogenic drivers in complex mountain–basin systems, with implications for spatially targeted ecological restoration and sustainable land management in ecologically sensitive transition zones.