Below-ground root nutrient-acquisition strategies are more sensitive to long-term grazing than above-ground leaf traits across a soil nutrient gradient

Understanding how plant nutrient acquisition strategies respond to grazing at the community level is critical to understanding ecosystem structure and functioning in grasslands. However, few studies have simultaneously compared the difference in aboveground (leaf) and belowground (root) nutrient-acquisition strategies in response to long-term grazing, especially at the regional scale. Here, we measured a set of leaf and fine-root traits that correspond to the fast-slow economic spectrum at the community level in 10 experimental sites from paired grazed and ungrazed grasslands across a soil nutrient gradient covering three major types of grasslands in northern China. We found that patterns of variations of leaf and fine-root traits were consistent with both a leaf and root economic spectrum at the community level for both grazed and non-grazed plots. Grazing had a minor effect on community-level leaf nutrient-acquisition strategies but strongly influenced community-level root nutrient-ac..., Study area and experimental design
The study area was located in temperate grasslands of the Inner Mongolian Plateau in Northern China (111.23 E–120.03 E, 41.25 N–49.52 N), where the climate is predominantly arid and semi-arid continental; Mean annual precipitation ranged from 225 to 433 mm and mean annual air temperature ranged from −2.3°C to 5.4°C. We selected three different types of grasslands along this transect from east to west: meadow steppe, typical steppe, and desert steppe. A total of ten sites with livestock long-term grazing and with various dominating plant species were selected along this transect, including five meadow steppes, three typical steppes, and two desert steppes (Zhang et al., 2023; See Table S1; Figure S1, S2 for details of the study sites, their locations, and their climatic conditions). Within each site, a long-term grazing exclosure was established in an area with a history of long-term heavy grazing. Livestock were excluded via the exclosure for over 10 y..., , # Below-ground root nutrient-acquisition strategies are more sensitive to long-term grazing than above-ground leaf traits across a soil nutrient gradient

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.1zcrjdg0w ](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.1zcrjdg0w)

## Description of the data and file structure

Description: We have submitted our raw data (Below-ground root nutrient-acquisition strategies are more sensitive to long-term grazing than above-ground leaf traits across a soil nutrient gradient.xlsx). The data came from ten sites across three grassland types. The values of plant functional traits were community-weighted means.

* G: It means grazing or exclosure. NG means exclosure. G means grazing.
* Location: It means the grassland type.
* P: It means site.
* Q: It means quadrat.
* SLA: Specific leaf area (mm^2/mg)
* LDMC: Leaf dry matter content (mg/g)
* LNC: Leaf nitrogen content (mg/g)
* SRL: Specific root length (cm/mg)
* RD: Root diameter (mm)
* RTD: Root tissue density (g/cm...