Materials and Methods
Experiment design, study
site and sample collection
This study employed soil, phyllosphere and faeces samples from the same
grazed grassland to compare and contrast the microbial distribution and
migration among them. Samples were collected in Research Station of
Animal Ecology (44°18′N, 116°45′E,1079 m a.s.l) located in the Maodeng
Pasture, Inner Mongolia Autonomous region, China. The sampling area
belongs to the Xinlingol steppe with continental temperate semi- arid
climate. The mean annual temperature is 3 oC and the
mean annual precipitation is 350 mm. The dominant vegetation species of
the study area are Leymus chinensis (Trin.) Tzvel ,Stipa
grandis, Cleistogenes squarrosa (Trin.) Keng , andAgropyron
cristatum. The phyllosphere samples were collected by cutting the
leaves approximately 10 cm above ground from 1m×1m quadrat of selected
plots with 3 replicates. The corresponding soil samples were also
collected in the same plots from the depth of 0-20 cm using a 3 cm
diameter earth boring auger in August 2017. The excreta collected
immediately from Ujimqin sheep which was the primary herbivores of the
pasture was studied as the fecal samples. Another 3 replicates of
phyllosphere and soil samples were collected with the same quadrat
conduction in ungrazed grassland.