{"type": "FeatureCollection", "features": [{"id": "10.1111/gcb.13431", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"updated": "2026-09-22T16:17:48Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2016-07-14", "title": "Grazing intensity significantly affects belowground carbon and nitrogen cycling in grassland ecosystems: a meta-analysis", "description": "Abstract<p>Livestock grazing activities potentially alter ecosystem carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) cycles in grassland ecosystems. Despite the fact that numerous individual studies and a few meta\uffe2\uff80\uff90analyses had been conducted, how grazing, especially its intensity, affects belowground C and N cycling in grasslands remains unclear. In this study, we performed a comprehensive meta\uffe2\uff80\uff90analysis of 115 published studies to examine the responses of 19 variables associated with belowground C and N cycling to livestock grazing in global grasslands. Our results showed that, on average, grazing significantly decreased belowground C and N pools in grassland ecosystems, with the largest decreases in microbial biomass C and N (21.62% and 24.40%, respectively). In contrast, belowground fluxes, including soil respiration, soil net N mineralization and soil N nitrification increased by 4.25%, 34.67% and 25.87%, respectively, in grazed grasslands compared to ungrazed ones. More importantly, grazing intensity significantly affected the magnitude (even direction) of changes in the majority of the assessed belowground C and N pools and fluxes, and C\uffc2\uffa0:\uffc2\uffa0N ratio as well as soil moisture. Specifically,light grazing contributed to soil C and N sequestration whereas moderate and heavy grazing significantly increased C and N losses. In addition, soil depth, livestock type and climatic conditions influenced the responses of selected variables to livestock grazing to some degree. Our findings highlight the importance of the effects of grazing intensity on belowground C and N cycling, which may need to be incorporated into regional and global models for predicting effects of human disturbance on global grasslands and assessing the climate\uffe2\uff80\uff90biosphere feedbacks.</p>", "keywords": ["Carbon sequestration", "Mineralization", "Livestock", "Nitrogen", "Soil microbial biomass", "Poaceae", "333", "Carbon Cycle", "Soil", "Animals", "mineralization", "Herbivory", "FoR 06 (Biological Sciences)", "Ecosystem", "2. Zero hunger", "Science & Technology", "Ecology", "050205 Environmental Management", "04 agricultural and veterinary sciences", "Nitrogen Cycle", "15. Life on land", "carbon sequestration", "Grassland", "soil microbial biomass", "Carbon", "Environmental sciences", "Biological sciences", "Heavy grazing", "13. Climate action", "heavy grazing", "CO2 emission", "Biodiversity Conservation", "0401 agriculture", " forestry", " and fisheries", "FoR 05 (Environmental Sciences)", "Life Sciences & Biomedicine"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.13431"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Global%20Change%20Biology", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.1111/gcb.13431", "name": "item", "description": "10.1111/gcb.13431", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.1111/gcb.13431"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2016-09-22T00:00:00Z"}}], "links": [{"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "This document as GeoJSON", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items?keywords=Heavy+grazing&f=json", "hreflang": "en-US"}, {"rel": "alternate", "type": "text/html", "title": "This document as HTML", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items?keywords=Heavy+grazing&f=html", "hreflang": "en-US"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection URL", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main", "hreflang": "en-US"}, {"type": "application/geo+json", "rel": "first", "title": "items (first)", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items?keywords=Heavy+grazing&", "hreflang": "en-US"}, {"rel": "last", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "items (last)", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items?keywords=Heavy+grazing&offset=1", "hreflang": "en-US"}], "numberMatched": 1, "numberReturned": 1, "distributedFeatures": [], "timeStamp": "2026-09-23T02:53:40.754181Z"}