Disturbance Gradients of Plateau Pika ( <i>Ochotona curzoniae</i> ) Reshape Soil Microbiome Communities in Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau Ecosystems

ABSTRACT The plateau pika ( Ochotona curzoniae ) is recognized as an ecosystem engineer on the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau (QTP). Despite the critical roles that soil microbiomes play in ecosystem functioning, little is known about how the disturbance behaviors of plateau pikas alter soil microbial community. Here, we investigated the impact of plateau pika disturbance across a gradient of intensities—high (1587 ± 89 burrows·ha −1 ), medium (667 ± 42 burrows·ha −1 ), and low (41 ± 5 burrows·ha −1 )‐on soil microbial composition, community assembly processes, functional profiles, and co‐occurrence network patterns using 16S rRNA sequencing. The results revealed that pika disturbance significantly altered soil microbial composition. Specifically, the relative abundance of Proteobacteria , Rokubacteria and Entorrhizomycota showed a significant increase with disturbance intensity. Furthermore, the disturbance altered both bacterial and fungal β diversity, resulting in a clear separation between microbial communities under low and high disturbance intensities. Soil pH, carbon and nitrogen contents were significantly correlated with both bacterial and fungal community compositions. Stochastic processes, particularly dispersal limitation, predominate in microbial community assembly and become more pronounced with greater disturbance. Furthermore, higher disturbance intensity resulted in a marked reduction in secondary metabolic functions and increased the complexity of microbial co‐occurrence networks. These findings demonstrate that plateau pika activity drives the restructuring of soil microbiomes across the disturbance gradient. This study provides an ecological perspective for integrating microbial metrics into alpine grassland management and for evaluating the ecological trade‐offs in managing pika populations on the QTP.