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.