Background and aims: Permafrost degradation has the potential to change the Arctic tundra landscape. We observed rapid local thawing of ice-rich permafrost resulting in thaw pond formation, which was triggered by removal of the shrub cover in a field experiment. This study aimed to examine the rate of permafrost thaw and the initial vegetation succession after the permafrost collapse. Methods: In the experiment, we measured changes in soil thaw depth, plant species cover and soil subsidence over nine years (2007\u20132015). Results: After abrupt initial thaw, soil subsidence in the removal plots continued indicating further thawing of permafrost albeit at a much slower pace: 1 cm y\u22121 over 2012\u20132015 vs. 5 cm y\u22121 over 2007\u20132012. Grass cover strongly increased after the initial shrub removal, but later declined with ponding of water in the subsiding removal plots. Sedges established and expanded in the wetter removal plots. Thereby, the removal plots have become increasingly similar to nearby \u2018natural\u2019 thaw ponds. Conclusions: The nine years of field observations in a unique shrub removal experiment at a Siberian tundra site document possible trajectories of small-scale permafrost collapse and the initial stage of vegetation recovery, which is essential knowledge for assessing future tundra landscape changes.
", "keywords": ["0301 basic medicine", "Ecology (including Biodiversity Conservation)", "Permafrost degradation", "Betula nana", "15. Life on land", "01 natural sciences", "Thermokarst", "Vegetation dynamics", "03 medical and health sciences", "13. Climate action", "Arctic tundra", "Environmental Sciences", "SDG 15 - Life on Land", "0105 earth and related environmental sciences"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-017-3369-8"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Plant%20and%20Soil", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.1007/s11104-017-3369-8", "name": "item", "description": "10.1007/s11104-017-3369-8", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.1007/s11104-017-3369-8"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2017-08-22T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.1038/nclimate2446", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"license": "Restricted", "updated": "2026-09-22T16:17:04Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2014-11-17", "title": "Permafrost Collapse After Shrub Removal Shifts Tundra Ecosystem To A Methane Source", "description": "Arctic tundra ecosystems are warming almost twice as fast as the global average. Permafrost thaw and the resulting release of greenhouse gases from decomposing soil organic carbon have the potential to accelerate climate warming. In recent decades, Arctic tundra ecosystems have changed rapidly, including expansion of woody vegetation, in response to changing climate conditions. How such vegetation changes contribute to stabilization or destabilization of the permafrost is unknown. Here we present six years of field observations in a shrub removal experiment at a Siberian tundra site. Removing the shrub part of the vegetation initiated thawing of ice-rich permafrost, resulting in collapse of the originally elevated shrub patches into waterlogged depressions within five years. This thaw pond development shifted the plots from a methane sink into a methane source. The results of our field experiment demonstrate the importance of the vegetation cover for protection of the massive carbon reservoirs stored in the permafrost and illustrate the strong vulnerability of these tundra ecosystems to perturbations. If permafrost thawing can more frequently trigger such local permafrost collapse, methane-emitting wet depressions could become more abundant in the lowland tundra landscape, at the cost of permafrost-stabilizing low shrub vegetation.", "keywords": ["alaska", "expansion", "13. Climate action", "climate-change", "ice", "SDG 13 - Climate Action", "arctic tundra", "thaw", "15. Life on land", "01 natural sciences", "0105 earth and related environmental sciences"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2446"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Nature%20Climate%20Change", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.1038/nclimate2446", "name": "item", "description": "10.1038/nclimate2446", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.1038/nclimate2446"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2014-11-24T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.1088/1748-9326/abfe8a", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"license": "Open Access", "updated": "2026-09-22T16:17:32Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2021-05-06", "title": "Decreased soil moisture due to warming drives phylogenetic diversity and community transitions in the tundra", "description": "AbstractGlobal warming leads to drastic changes in the diversity and structure of Arctic plant communities. Studies of functional diversity within the Arctic tundra biome have improved our understanding of plant responses to warming. However, these studies still show substantial unexplained variation in diversity responses. Complementary to functional diversity, phylogenetic diversity has been useful in climate change studies, but has so far been understudied in the Arctic. Here, we use a 25 year warming experiment to disentangle community responses in Arctic plant phylogenetic \uffce\uffb2 diversity across a soil moisture gradient. We found that responses varied over the soil moisture gradient, where meadow communities with intermediate to high soil moisture had a higher magnitude of response. Warming had a negative effect on soil moisture levels in all meadow communities, however meadows with intermediate moisture levels were more sensitive. In these communities, soil moisture loss was associated with earlier snowmelt, resulting in community turnover towards a more heath-like community. This process of \uffe2\uff80\uff98heathification\uffe2\uff80\uff99 in the intermediate moisture meadows was driven by the expansion of ericoid and Betula shrubs. In contrast, under a more consistent water supply Salix shrub abundance increased in wet meadows. Due to its lower stature, palatability and decomposability, the increase in heath relative to meadow vegetation can have several large scale effects on the local food web as well as climate. Our study highlights the importance of the hydrological cycle as a driver of vegetation turnover in response to Arctic climate change. The observed patterns in phylogenetic \uffce\uffb2 diversity were often driven by contrasting responses of species of the same functional growth form, and could thus provide important complementary information. Thus, phylogenetic diversity is an important tool in disentangling tundra response to environmental change.The climate\uffe2\uff80\uff90driven encroachment of shrubs into the Arctic is accompanied by shifts in soil fungal communities that could contribute to a net release of carbon from tundra soils. At the same time, arctic grazers are known to prevent the establishment of deciduous shrubs and, under certain conditions, promote the dominance of evergreen shrubs. As these different vegetation types associate with contrasting fungal communities, the belowground consequences of climate change could vary among grazing regimes. Yet, at present, the impact of grazing on soil fungal communities and their links to soil carbon have remained speculative. Here we tested how soil fungal community composition, diversity and function depend on tree vicinity and long\uffe2\uff80\uff90term reindeer grazing regime and assessed how the fungal communities relate to organic soil carbon stocks in an alpine treeline ecotone in Northern Scandinavia. We determined soil carbon stocks and characterized soil fungal communities directly underneath and >3\uffc2\uffa0m away from mountain birches (Betula pubescens ssp. czerepanovii) in two adjacent 55\uffe2\uff80\uff90year\uffe2\uff80\uff90old grazing regimes with or without summer grazing by reindeer (Rangifer tarandus). We show that the area exposed to year\uffe2\uff80\uff90round grazing dominated by evergreen dwarf shrubs had higher soil C:N ratio, higher fungal abundance and lower fungal diversity compared with the area with only winter grazing and higher abundance of mountain birch. Although soil carbon stocks did not differ between the grazing regimes, stocks were positively associated with root\uffe2\uff80\uff90associated ascomycetes, typical to the year\uffe2\uff80\uff90round grazing regime, and negatively associated with free\uffe2\uff80\uff90living saprotrophs, typical to the winter grazing regime. These findings suggest that when grazers promote dominance of evergreen dwarf shrubs, they induce shifts in soil fungal communities that increase soil carbon sequestration in the long term. Thus, to predict climate\uffe2\uff80\uff90driven changes in soil carbon, grazer\uffe2\uff80\uff90induced shifts in vegetation and soil fungal communities need to be accounted for.
Changing temperature regimes and precipitation patterns in the Subarctic will impact on vegetation composition and diversity including those of bryophyte and lichen communities, which are major drivers of high\uffe2\uff80\uff90latitude carbon and nutrient cycling and hydrology.
We investigated the relative importance of such impacts at different temporal, spatial and plant functional scales in subarctic Sphagnum fuscum\uffe2\uff80\uff90dominated peatlands, comprising both an in situ warming experiment and natural climatic and topographic gradients in northern Sweden and Norway. We applied multivariate analyses to investigate the relationships among cryptogam and vascular plant species composition and abiotic (temperature, moisture) and biotic (Sphagnum growth) regimes at various scales.
At the short\uffe2\uff80\uff90term temporal scale (4\uffe2\uff80\uff90year warming experiment), increased temperature yielded no clear effect on cryptogam or vascular plant species composition. Spatially, direct effects of temperature were decisive for overall species composition across regions (macro\uffe2\uff80\uff90scale) rather than within one region (meso\uffe2\uff80\uff90scale). Moisture and Sphagnum growth were drivers of species composition at all spatial scales, and Sphagnum growth itself depended on its position on the microtopographic gradient and on temperature.
Grouping of bryophytes and lichens at increasing scales of functional aggregation from species, growth form to the major higher taxon level (Sphagnum, other mosses, liverworts, lichens) revealed mostly increasing correlation with climate regimes and Sphagnum growth. Excluding liverworts from the analysis tended to reduce the correlation.
Abundances of lichens, liverworts, non\uffe2\uff80\uff90Sphagnum mosses and (to a lesser degree) vascular plants were negatively related to Sphagnum abundance. Few cryptogam and vascular plant species showed a positive relationship with Sphagnum abundance. Correspondingly, cryptogam species richness and Shannon Index on peatlands strongly declined as Sphagnum abundance increased, while indices for vascular plants showed no significant relationship.
Synthesis. Scale, be it spatial or functional, strongly determined which environmental drivers showed the clearest relationships with vegetation composition and diversity. Our findings will help to optimize predictions about long\uffe2\uff80\uff90term effects of climate on peatland vegetation composition, and subsequently its feedbacks to carbon and water cycles, at the regional scale.
", "keywords": ["0106 biological sciences", "simulated environmental-change", "species composition", "western canada", "alaskan arctic tundra", "response surfaces", "15. Life on land", "01 natural sciences", "hylocomium-splendens", "13. Climate action", "physical gradients", "SDG 13 - Climate Action", "nutrient availability", "community structure", "global change"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2745.2008.01472.x"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Journal%20of%20Ecology", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.1111/j.1365-2745.2008.01472.x", "name": "item", "description": "10.1111/j.1365-2745.2008.01472.x", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.1111/j.1365-2745.2008.01472.x"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2009-02-11T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.1371/journal.pone.0077212", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"license": "Open Access", "updated": "2026-09-22T16:18:22Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2013-10-16", "title": "Carbon-Degrading Enzyme Activities Stimulated By Increased Nutrient Availability In Arctic Tundra Soils", "description": "Climate-induced warming of the Arctic tundra is expected to increase nutrient availability to soil microbes, which in turn may accelerate soil organic matter (SOM) decomposition. We increased nutrient availability via fertilization to investigate the microbial response via soil enzyme activities. Specifically, we measured potential activities of seven enzymes at four temperatures in three soil profiles (organic, organic/mineral interface, and mineral) from untreated native soils and from soils which had been fertilized with nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) since 1989 (23 years) and 2006 (six years). Fertilized plots within the 1989 site received annual additions of 10 g N \u00b7 m(-2) \u00b7 year(-1) and 5 g P \u00b7 m(-2) \u00b7 year(-1). Within the 2006 site, two fertilizer regimes were established--one in which plots received 5 g N \u00b7 m(-2) \u00b7 year(-1) and 2.5 g P \u00b7 m(-2) \u00b7 year(-1) and one in which plots received 10 g N \u00b7 m(-2) \u00b7 year(-1) and 5 g P \u00b7 m(-2) \u00b7 year(-1). The fertilization treatments increased activities of enzymes hydrolyzing carbon (C)-rich compounds but decreased phosphatase activities, especially in the organic soils. Activities of two enzymes that degrade N-rich compounds were not affected by the fertilization treatments. The fertilization treatments increased ratios of enzyme activities degrading C-rich compounds to those for N-rich compounds or phosphate, which could lead to changes in SOM chemistry over the long term and to losses of soil C. Accelerated SOM decomposition caused by increased nutrient availability could significantly offset predicted increased C fixation via stimulated net primary productivity in Arctic tundra ecosystems.", "keywords": ["550", "Nitrogen", "Science", "Climate", "Microbial Consortia", "Soil", "soil organic matter", "Fertilizers", "Soil Microbiology", "2. Zero hunger", "decomposition", "Arctic Regions", "Q", "R", "Temperature", "Phosphorus", "04 agricultural and veterinary sciences", "15. Life on land", "Carbon", "Phosphoric Monoester Hydrolases", "soil organic carbon", "13. Climate action", "Medicine", "0401 agriculture", " forestry", " and fisheries", "Arctic tundra ecosystem", "Glucosidases", "Research Article", "Peptide Hydrolases"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0077212"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/PLoS%20ONE", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.1371/journal.pone.0077212", "name": "item", "description": "10.1371/journal.pone.0077212", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.1371/journal.pone.0077212"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2013-10-15T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.3389/fmicb.2014.00516", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"license": "Open Access", "updated": "2026-09-22T16:19:13Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2014-10-02", "title": "Soil Bacterial Community Composition Altered By Increased Nutrient Availability In Arctic Tundra Soils", "description": "The pool of soil organic carbon (SOC) in the Arctic is disproportionally large compared to those in other biomes. This large quantity of SOC accumulated over millennia due to slow rates of decomposition relative to net primary productivity. Decomposition is constrained by low temperatures and nutrient concentrations, which limit soil microbial activity. We investigated how nutrients limit bacterial and fungal biomass and community composition in organic and mineral soils within moist acidic tussock tundra ecosystems. We sampled two experimental arrays of moist acidic tussock tundra that included fertilized and non-fertilized control plots. One array included plots that had been fertilized annually since 1989 and the other since 2006. Fertilization significantly altered overall bacterial community composition and reduced evenness, to a greater degree in organic than mineral soils, and in the 1989 compared to the 2006 site. The relative abundance of copiotrophic \u03b1-Proteobacteria and \u03b2-Proteobacteria was higher in fertilized than control soils, and oligotrophic Acidobacteria were less abundant in fertilized than control soils at the 1989 site. Fungal community composition was less sensitive to increased nutrient availability, and fungal responses to fertilization were not consistent between soil horizons and sites. We detected two ectomycorrhizal genera, Russula and Cortinarius spp., associated with shrubs. Their relative abundance was not affected by fertilization despite increased dominance of their host plants in the fertilized plots. Our results indicate that fertilization, which has been commonly used to simulate warming in Arctic tundra, has limited applicability for investigating fungal dynamics under warming.", "keywords": ["2. Zero hunger", "0301 basic medicine", "0303 health sciences", "550", "Bacteria", "Nitrogen", "Fungi", "Phosphorus", "15. Life on land", "Microbiology", "nitrogen", "QR1-502", "soil", "03 medical and health sciences", "fertilization", "13. Climate action", "Fertilization", "Mycorrhizae", "fungi", "Arctic tundra", "phosphorus", "bacteria", "mycorrhizae"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2014.00516"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Frontiers%20in%20Microbiology", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.3389/fmicb.2014.00516", "name": "item", "description": "10.3389/fmicb.2014.00516", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.3389/fmicb.2014.00516"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2014-10-02T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.5683/SP3/PAXLVH", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"license": "Open Access", "updated": "2026-09-22T16:21:23Z", "type": "Dataset", "title": "Plant and soil variables in plots outside and beneath Salix richardsonii patches along active and abandoned channels in a High Arctic tundra", "description": "We explored how erect shrub abundance leads to SOC variation within 20 cm soil cores in a High Arctic tundra (Bylot Island, Nunavut, Canada), where the only erect shrub, Salix richardsonii, has settled along currently active and abandoned channel zones of alluvial fans.", "keywords": ["High Arctic tundra", "Salix arctica", "soil 15N", "15. Life on land", "Salix richardsonii", "soil organic carbon stocks", "soil 14C", "soil 13C", "Salix reticulata", "Particulate organic matter", "Earth and Environmental Sciences", "Shrubification", "Plant-enhanced mineralization;", "Plant functional traits", "Alluvian fan"], "contacts": [{"organization": "Maire, Vincent, Lamarque, Laurent, L\u00e9vesque, Esther,", "roles": ["creator"]}]}, "links": [{"href": "https://doi.org/10.5683/SP3/PAXLVH"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.5683/SP3/PAXLVH", "name": "item", "description": "10.5683/SP3/PAXLVH", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.5683/SP3/PAXLVH"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2023-01-01T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10576/21421", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"license": "Open Access", "updated": "2026-09-22T16:22:05Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2021-05-06", "title": "Decreased soil moisture due to warming drives phylogenetic diversity and community transitions in the tundra", "description": "AbstractGlobal warming leads to drastic changes in the diversity and structure of Arctic plant communities. Studies of functional diversity within the Arctic tundra biome have improved our understanding of plant responses to warming. However, these studies still show substantial unexplained variation in diversity responses. Complementary to functional diversity, phylogenetic diversity has been useful in climate change studies, but has so far been understudied in the Arctic. Here, we use a 25 year warming experiment to disentangle community responses in Arctic plant phylogenetic \uffce\uffb2 diversity across a soil moisture gradient. We found that responses varied over the soil moisture gradient, where meadow communities with intermediate to high soil moisture had a higher magnitude of response. Warming had a negative effect on soil moisture levels in all meadow communities, however meadows with intermediate moisture levels were more sensitive. In these communities, soil moisture loss was associated with earlier snowmelt, resulting in community turnover towards a more heath-like community. This process of \uffe2\uff80\uff98heathification\uffe2\uff80\uff99 in the intermediate moisture meadows was driven by the expansion of ericoid and Betula shrubs. In contrast, under a more consistent water supply Salix shrub abundance increased in wet meadows. Due to its lower stature, palatability and decomposability, the increase in heath relative to meadow vegetation can have several large scale effects on the local food web as well as climate. Our study highlights the importance of the hydrological cycle as a driver of vegetation turnover in response to Arctic climate change. The observed patterns in phylogenetic \uffce\uffb2 diversity were often driven by contrasting responses of species of the same functional growth form, and could thus provide important complementary information. Thus, phylogenetic diversity is an important tool in disentangling tundra response to environmental change.The climate\uffe2\uff80\uff90driven encroachment of shrubs into the Arctic is accompanied by shifts in soil fungal communities that could contribute to a net release of carbon from tundra soils. At the same time, arctic grazers are known to prevent the establishment of deciduous shrubs and, under certain conditions, promote the dominance of evergreen shrubs. As these different vegetation types associate with contrasting fungal communities, the belowground consequences of climate change could vary among grazing regimes. Yet, at present, the impact of grazing on soil fungal communities and their links to soil carbon have remained speculative. Here we tested how soil fungal community composition, diversity and function depend on tree vicinity and long\uffe2\uff80\uff90term reindeer grazing regime and assessed how the fungal communities relate to organic soil carbon stocks in an alpine treeline ecotone in Northern Scandinavia. We determined soil carbon stocks and characterized soil fungal communities directly underneath and >3\uffc2\uffa0m away from mountain birches (Betula pubescens ssp. czerepanovii) in two adjacent 55\uffe2\uff80\uff90year\uffe2\uff80\uff90old grazing regimes with or without summer grazing by reindeer (Rangifer tarandus). We show that the area exposed to year\uffe2\uff80\uff90round grazing dominated by evergreen dwarf shrubs had higher soil C:N ratio, higher fungal abundance and lower fungal diversity compared with the area with only winter grazing and higher abundance of mountain birch. Although soil carbon stocks did not differ between the grazing regimes, stocks were positively associated with root\uffe2\uff80\uff90associated ascomycetes, typical to the year\uffe2\uff80\uff90round grazing regime, and negatively associated with free\uffe2\uff80\uff90living saprotrophs, typical to the winter grazing regime. These findings suggest that when grazers promote dominance of evergreen dwarf shrubs, they induce shifts in soil fungal communities that increase soil carbon sequestration in the long term. Thus, to predict climate\uffe2\uff80\uff90driven changes in soil carbon, grazer\uffe2\uff80\uff90induced shifts in vegetation and soil fungal communities need to be accounted for.The climate\uffe2\uff80\uff90driven encroachment of shrubs into the Arctic is accompanied by shifts in soil fungal communities that could contribute to a net release of carbon from tundra soils. At the same time, arctic grazers are known to prevent the establishment of deciduous shrubs and, under certain conditions, promote the dominance of evergreen shrubs. As these different vegetation types associate with contrasting fungal communities, the belowground consequences of climate change could vary among grazing regimes. Yet, at present, the impact of grazing on soil fungal communities and their links to soil carbon have remained speculative. Here we tested how soil fungal community composition, diversity and function depend on tree vicinity and long\uffe2\uff80\uff90term reindeer grazing regime and assessed how the fungal communities relate to organic soil carbon stocks in an alpine treeline ecotone in Northern Scandinavia. We determined soil carbon stocks and characterized soil fungal communities directly underneath and >3\uffc2\uffa0m away from mountain birches (Betula pubescens ssp. czerepanovii) in two adjacent 55\uffe2\uff80\uff90year\uffe2\uff80\uff90old grazing regimes with or without summer grazing by reindeer (Rangifer tarandus). We show that the area exposed to year\uffe2\uff80\uff90round grazing dominated by evergreen dwarf shrubs had higher soil C:N ratio, higher fungal abundance and lower fungal diversity compared with the area with only winter grazing and higher abundance of mountain birch. Although soil carbon stocks did not differ between the grazing regimes, stocks were positively associated with root\uffe2\uff80\uff90associated ascomycetes, typical to the year\uffe2\uff80\uff90round grazing regime, and negatively associated with free\uffe2\uff80\uff90living saprotrophs, typical to the winter grazing regime. These findings suggest that when grazers promote dominance of evergreen dwarf shrubs, they induce shifts in soil fungal communities that increase soil carbon sequestration in the long term. Thus, to predict climate\uffe2\uff80\uff90driven changes in soil carbon, grazer\uffe2\uff80\uff90induced shifts in vegetation and soil fungal communities need to be accounted for.