Soil Disturbance of Plateau Zokor (Eospalax baileyi) Promotes the Stability of Alpine Plant Communities

Alpine meadows on the Tibetan Plateau experience chronic, fine-scale disturbances from the plateau zokor (Eospalax baileyi), a subterranean rodent that alters soil and vegetation structure through persistent burrowing and mounding. While classical the-ory predicts that plant community stability peaks at intermediate disturbance levels, this may not apply under spatially heterogeneous disturbance regimes. We assessed community stability across a five-level zokor disturbance gradient using a mul-ti-indicator framework integrating compositional variability (Average Variation Degree, AVD), co-occurrence-based cohesion, indicator species analysis, and boosted regression tree (BRT) modeling. Stability (1−AVD) peaked under extreme disturbance, alongside reduced indicator species richness and dominance of disturbance-tolerant taxa. In-creased cohesion suggested stronger species associations. Drivers of stability shifted from plant attributes under low disturbance to soil constraints (bulk density, moisture) under high disturbance. These results challenge the intermediate disturbance–stability paradigm and suggest that abiotic filtering can promote compositional convergence and structural stability. Our findings highlight the importance of spatial disturbance pat-terns in shaping community resilience and provide early-warning indicators and tar-geted guidance for managing alpine grasslands under subterranean disturbance.