Abstract:[Objective] This study aimed to explore the effects of grazing disturbance on soil nutrients and microbial biomass in desert steppe.[Methods] The impacts of grazing disturbance(high disturbance, HD; middle disturbance, MD; lower disturbance, LD) on soil nutrients and microbial biomass was analyzed based on the field investigation and the laboratory analysis.[Results] The vegetation coverage, species diversity, ground biomass, soil nutrients and microbial biomass significantly reduced. The soil bulk density and pH value increased. The soil conductivity firstly increased and then decreased with the increase of grazing intensity, while the underground biomass had no obvious trend. The soil nutrient and microbial biomass decreased progressively with the increase of soil depth and showed enrichment in the surface soil layer, the "surface accumulation" was observed obvious. The variation coefficient of soil total phosphorus was the highest, which implied that the spatial variability of soil total phosphorus was mostly influenced by grazing intensity. The vertical distributions of soil nutrients and microbial biomass were not affected by razing or not, and were independent on the grazing intensity. Microbial biomass had significant correlation with soil nutrients though grazing disturbed. The two items also had obvious correlations with soil moisture.[Conclusion] Soil total phosphorus showed more spatial heterogeneous than other nutrients under grazing conditions. And soil microbial biomass was more sensitive than soil nutrients to grazing disturbance. The variation responses of soil nutrients, microbial biomass and other indicators to grazing showed a consistency trait.