Nutrient cycling is a key ecosystem service provided by soils, which may be impacted by global change-induced droughts and alterations to grazing pressure. While the belowground abiotic and biotic responses to drought are increasingly studied, linkages among plant, animal, and microbial responses to drought remain poorly understood. Here we used an innovative experimental approach to enable understanding the relative importance of rainfall reduction, bovine grazing, and their interplay on soil nutrient pools and processes during and after treatments. Specifically, we experimentally imposed a two-year drought of varying intensity (five levels) at two northern mixed-grass prairie sites in Montana and Wyoming. Crossed with this drought treatment, we also imposed a gradient of bovine grazing pressure during the two drought years and three years of recovery following the drought. We found that rainfall reductions at both sites resulted in reductions in soil available P and micronutrients during treatment application. Conversely, rainfall reductions caused both immediate and persistent increases in soil NO₃^-. Soil nutrients were generally unaffected by grazing treatments. In contrast, biotic soil properties including the activities of six extracellular enzymes and bacterial and fungal community compositions were relatively resistant to rainfall reduction treatments. However, grazing treatments appeared to have a greater effect on extracellular enzyme activity potentials and soil microbial community composition. Overall, our results highlight the relative stability of belowground processes in semi-arid rangelands in the face of drought and land management strategies.

The article utilizing this dataset is at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soilbio.2025.110071.