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1. Nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) often limit biological processes in terrestrial ecosystems. Based on previous studies mainly focusing on plants, the concept of resource limitation has evolved towards a theory of (co) limitations by multiple resources. However, this ecological framework has not been applied to analyse how soil micro-organisms and plants concurrently respond to N and/or P addition, and whether these responses are constrained by phylogenetic relatedness.

2. Here, we applied this framework to analyse microbial and plant responses at community and taxon levels to different fertilization treatments (four N levels without P; four P levels without N and four NP levels) in Tibetan grasslands.

3. Total plant biomass showed serial limitation by N then P, and most plant species were limited by N only. Total archaeal abundance decreased with P addition, but diverse nutrient limitation types were observed for archaeal taxa. Closely related archaeal taxa tended to similarly respond to N, and functional similarity between distant archaeal groups was observed for response to P, possibly due to functional convergence. In contrast, total bacteria slightly increased with P addition only when plants remained N limited, whereas without N limitation, plants rather than bacteria benefited from P addition. Most bacterial taxa were limited by other resources than N and P, and no clear phylogenetic signals were observed regarding bacterial responses to N/P additions.

4. Synthesis. We propose a novel approach for characterizing microbial response types to nutrient addition. It demonstrates that in Tibetan meadows, most dominant plant species, archaea and bacteria, respectively, depend on N, both N and P and other resources.