Warming Drives the Reassembly of Carbon-Sequestering Microbial Communities in Alpine Lakeshore Wetland Without Altering Their Core Metabolic Functional Redundancy

Climate warming is an important driver influencing soil microbial involvement in carbon cycling. To clarify the responses of carbon-fixing microorganisms in alpine lakeshore wetlands, we conducted a warming experiment using open-top chambers (OTCs) in the Qinghai Lake lakeshore wetland and applied high-throughput sequencing of the <i>cbbM</i> gene. The results indicated that warming significantly increased soil temperature and reduced soil moisture, but had no significant effects on soil pH, total carbon, or total nitrogen content. Despite the stability of community α-diversity, warming markedly reshaped the community composition and significantly elevated the relative abundances of dominant taxa including <i>Ensifer</i> and <i>Hydrogenovibrio</i>. In addition, warming significantly strengthened the assembly process of the <i>cbbM</i>-bearing carbon-fixing microbial community, in which heterogeneous selection played a leading role. Redundancy analysis revealed that soil total nitrogen and pH were major drivers influencing the composition of the microbial community. Notably, despite significant fluctuations in taxonomic composition, the functional profile dominated by sulfur oxidation and phototrophy remained unchanged, indicating strong functional redundancy. Overall, <i>cbbM</i> carbon-fixing microorganisms in alpine lakeshore wetlands effectively buffered environmental disturbances through functional redundancy and maintained stable carbon metabolic functions, providing scientific evidence for the short-term resilience of carbon sink functions in alpine wetlands under climate warming.