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Grazing exclusion has been proposed as a method of restoring degraded grassland ecosystems. However, its effectiveness remains poorly understood in mountain-basin grasslands in arid regions. Thus, we investigated the plant community characteristics, C and N storage levels, and soil organic carbon and total nitrogen concentrations and storage within the upper 0-40 cm soil layer in a grazed grassland (CC) and a fenced grassland (FG) with grazing exclusion in mountain meadow (MM) and temperate typical steppe (TTS) habitats in a mountain basin ecosystem in an arid region of Central China, which are both vital grassland resources for livestock grazing and ecological conservation. In MM, our investigation revealed that grazing exclusion was beneficial to the productivity, coverage, height, diversity, and C and N storage of aboveground plants. However, grazing exclusion was not an effective option for soil C and N sequestration. In TT’s, grazing exclusion effectively improved the plant productivity, coverage, height, plant and soil C and N sequestration, although it was not beneficial for maintaining plant diversity. Our findings suggest that reduced or rotational grazing may be a butler choice than grazing exclusion in MM. In addition, considering the trade-off between biomass productivity and species diversify in ITS, short-term grazing exclusion should be considered. Additionally, grazing exclusion should be combined with other appropriate measures rather than operating on a standalone basis. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.