Context-dependent responses of soil microbes and nematodes to grazing: Evidence from a global meta-analysis

Livestock grazing is one of the most important land-use activities in grassland ecosystems, imposing significant impacts on soil community abundance, composition, and biodiversity. Soil microbiota, such as microbes and nematodes, are key components of soil micro-food webs and contribute substantially to ecosystem functioning. However, it remains unknown how grazing affects soil microbiota on a global scale. In this study, we conducted a meta-analysis based on 146 published studies encompassing 1,560 paired observations across various environments to gain comprehensive insights into the influences of grazing on the abundance and diversity of soil microbes and nematodes. We found that grazing significantly decreased soil microbial biomass, total nematode abundance, and the abundance of all nematode trophic groups except for fungal-feeders, particularly in temperate grasslands. Such effects were stronger under continuous, heavy-intensity, and long-term grazing than under rotational, light ..., , # Context-dependent responses of soil microbes and nematodes to grazing: Evidence from a global meta-analysis Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.cjsxksnmq](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.cjsxksnmq) ## Description of the data and file structure Title：Context-dependent responses of soil microbes and nematodes to grazing: Evidence from a global meta-analysis DOI: 10.5061/dryad.cjsxksnm We conducted a global meta-analysis to investigate the responses of soil microbial and nematode communities to livestock grazing. This dataset synthesizes data from multiple independent studies to evaluate how grazing impacts vary across diverse environmental contexts. The database primarily includes biological indicators (abundance and diversity of microbes and nematodes), climatic variables, and soil properties -plant survey data. ### Files and variables #### File: Tian_et_al_2026_JAPPE_Data.xlsx **Description:** In this file, we provide the f..., ,