Abstract:Climate change affects the physiological activities of soil microbes, which causes changes of soil microbial community structure and functional diversity and cascades the effects on biogeochemical cycling and climate-ecosystem feedbacks. Among them, nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) are considered as the limiting factors that influences the plant biodiversity and primary productivity in forest ecosystems. The external N addition or atmospheric N deposition has been found to affect the aboveground biology processes and the underground biochemistry of soil, both directly and indirectly. Chronic elevated N input has been shown to lead to many adverse impacts, including soil acidification, nutrients imbalance, and the increased greenhouse gas emissions. Forest soils of southern China are P-limited, because they are highly weathered and leached, and little P is released even from the weathering of primary P-bearing minerals. As a result, P fertilization is widely used in the subtropical forests of southern China. As an important component in regulating belowground ecological processes, the soil microbes are primary mediators of organic matter decomposition and nutrient cycling, and thus play a key role in maintaining function and sustainability of terrestrial ecosystems. Additionally, changes in soil microbial function and community composition may trigger a series of responses, such as impacting litter and organic matter decomposition rates, humus formation nutrient transformation and cycling, and then alter the interaction between soil microbes and plant communities. In this study, Biolog-ECO microplate method was used to investigate the interactive effects of nitrogen and phosphorus additions and different stand densities on soil microbial functional diversity of Acacia auriculiformis stands, which can provide a basis for establishing reasonable stand density, fertilization method, and improve soil quality. NH4Cl and NaH2PO4·2H2O were selected to simulate atmospheric nitrogen and phosphorus additions with 4 treatments (CK, N, P and N+P) and stand density was set at 4 levels (1667, 2500, 4444, and 10000 seedlings/hm2). The results showed that P treatment promoted the average well color development (AWCD) values, richness index, McIntosh index, Shannon index, and Simpson index of soil microbes in the four density stands, while the N and N+P treatments were opposite. With the decrease of forest density, the AWCD values of soil microbes in all treatments decreased. Generally, soil microbial richness index, Shannon-Wiener index, McIntosh index and Simpson index were small in the low density stands.