Soil microbiome mediates the recovery of soil fertility following release from overgrazing in Mongolian grasslands

We evaluate these effects by integrating broad scale surveys of structure and function across the Mongolian Steppe with metagenomic sequencing of the soil microbiome targeting paired heavily grazed sites and exclosures of short-term (2 years), medium-term (11 years) and long-term (33 years). Our results showed that long-term overgrazing decreased plant species richness, aboveground biomass and soil fertility, including soil organic carbon, total nitrogen and total phosphorus content. We found that the recovery of soil microbiome composition and function increased with increasing duration of the release from grazing.Our findings indicate that release from grazing on scales of decades can initiate changes in the soil microbiome that facilitate the recovery of primary productivity and ecosystem functions in grasslands.