To reveal the regulatory mechanisms of different utilization methods on the relationship between plant diversity and soil phosphorus in temperate meadow steppe， this study selected the grassland within the Huihe National Nature Reserve as the object and systematically compared the response characteristics of plant diversity indicators and surface soil phosphorus activation coefficient （PAC） under grazing， mowing， and enclosure modes. The results showed that plant diversity responded significantly to the utilization methods. The number of species， Margalef index， Simpson index， and Shannon-Wiener index under mowing were significantly higher than those under enclosure and grazing （P<0.05）， and enclosure was significantly higher than grazing； the Pielou evenness index was only significantly higher under mowing than grazing （P<0.05）. Soil phosphorus and its availability varied depending on the utilization methods. The content of total soil phosphorus （TP） under mowing was significantly higher than that under enclosure and grazing （P<0.05）； grazing significantly increased the content of surface soil available phosphorus （AP） and PAC （P<0.05）. The relationship between plant diversity and soil phosphorus was regulated by the utilization methods. Under enclosure， AP was significantly negatively correlated with all diversity indices， and PAC was significantly negatively correlated with most indices； under grazing， TP was significantly negatively correlated with the Margalef index， while significantly positively correlated with the Pielou index， and AP was only negatively correlated with the Margalef index； under mowing， there was no significant correlation between soil phosphorus indicators and plant diversity indices. In summary， the utilization methods not only independently affected plant diversity and soil phosphorus availability， but also regulated the relationship between them.

Temperate meadow steppe  /  Species composition  /  Plant diversity  /  Available phosphorus  /  P activation coefficient