Data comprise numbers of soil microarthorpods (mesofauna) extracted over 10 days from soils in northern, subarctic Sweden sampled on 29th July 2019. Soils were sampled from treeline mountain birch forest and stands of tundra willow that were wither 'girdled' (connection between leaves and roots cut by disrupting the phloem transport) or ‘control’ (no treatment), two years prior. Full details about this dataset can be found at https://doi.org/10.5285/d3c98f24-7a4d-40b8-989a-6cc340e91cac
