Precipitation drives soil protist diversity and community structure in cold and arid grasslands

Protists are essential components of soil microbial communities, mediating nutrient cycling and ecosystem functions in terrestrial ecosystems. However, their distribution patterns and driving forces remain largely unknown, which limits our understanding of protist functions in ecosystems. This is particularly concerning in dryland regions where soil microbiomes are more important for ecosystem functions because plant growth is heavily constrained by environmental stresses. Herein we explored soil protist diversity, community structure, and responses to grazing in paired grazed and ungrazed grasslands on the plateau, using the high-throughput sequencing of 18s rRNA genes targeting protists.