Over recent decades, the Inner Mongolia Steppe has degraded seriously owing to global climate change and extreme human activities, and the population of Caragana microphylla (a native leguminous shrub) spread quickly in the degraded regions. To relieve the pressure of shrub-encroachment and promote the restoration of degraded grasslands, several measures, such as pruning, have been carried out. However, little is known about how pruning affects the community patterns and soil physical and chemical properties. In the present study, we selected a C. microphylla-dominated grassland in Zhenglan Banner, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and set up pruning and non-pruning (control) plots with a combination of sites at different distances to the shrub edge (0.5 and 2.5 m distances, named 0.5 and 2.5 m-site), as treatments to investigated the soil characteristics and spatial distribution patterns of neighbouring plant communities by Null-model. The results were as follows.(1) Soil total carbon, soil total nitrogen, and Pielou evenness index were significantly (P < 0.05) influenced by pruning treatments, but not by sites, being significantly higher under pruning treatments than those under non-pruning treatments; (2) Under non-pruning treatments, the community spatial distribution patterns were dominated by competition; however, under pruning treatments, community spatial distribution patterns showed less competition, and the 2.5 m-site under the pruning treatments was dominated by facilitation; (3) Only a few pairwise species were detected to have significant negative or positive interactions (the Standardized Effect Size was greater than 2 or less than -2), and they consisted of the dominant species of their communities. However, they still played a key role in explaining community spatial distribution patterns. The number of pairwise species that have significant negative interactions under pruning treatments was less than that under non-pruning treatments, suggesting less competition in pruning communities. The results not only provided an experimental basis for exploring variations in community spatial distribution patterns by pruning C. microphylla, but also provided practical guidance for the restoration of shrub-encroached grasslands.