Journal of Applied Ecology This article has been accepted for publication and undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process, which may lead to differences between this version and the Version of Record. Please cite this article as doi: 10.1111/1365-2664.13824 This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved 1 2 DR MAOWEI LIANG (Orcid ID : 0000-0002-1517-0497) 3 NICHOLAS G. SMITH (Orcid ID : 0000-0001-7048-4387) 4 5 6 Article type : Research Article 7 Editor : Sharif Mukul 8 9 10 Running Head: Grazing effects on carbon cycling 11 Title: Shifts in plant composition mediate grazing effects on carbon cycling in grasslands 12 Authors: 13 Maowei Liang 1,2,3,4 , Nicholas G. Smith 5 , Jiquan Chen 4 , Yantao Wu 2 , Zhiwei Guo 2 , Elise S. Gornish 3 , 14 Cunzhu Liang 2* 15 Authors’ affiliations: 16 1. Institute of Ecology, College of Urban and Environmental Science, and Key Laboratory for Earth 17 Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China 18 2. Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Ecology and Resources Use of the Mongolian Plateau, 19 School of Ecology and Environment, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot 010021, China 20 3. School of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, 21 USA 22 4. Center for Global Change and Earth Observations, Department of Geography, Environment, and 23 Spatial Sciences, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA 24 5. Department of Biological Sciences, Texas Tech University, Lubbock 79409, USA 25 *Correspondence author: 26 Dr. Cunzhu Liang, Tel: +86 131 7103 5695; E-mail: bilcz@imu.edu.cn. Accepted Article