Effects of Returning Different Organic Materials in Combination with Inorganic Fertilizers on the Diversity of Eukaryotic Microorganisms in Semi-Arid Northern China

Abstract

Soil eukaryotic microorganisms are important to biodiversity, and returning different kinds of organic materials to the field could improve the biodiversity of soil eukaryotic microorganisms. However, no detailed research has been conducted in the northern China semi-arid area in returning the different organic materials to the field and determining the status of eukaryotic microorganisms. Therefore, we explored the effects of various organic materials returning to the soil in combination with inorganic fertilizer on the diversity and community structure of eukaryotic microorganisms in Shanxi province, China. Soil samples were collected from five different fertilization treatments: chemical fertilizer (F), chemical fertilizer + cattle manure (FM), chemical fertilizer + straw (FS), chemical fertilizer + pig manure (FC) and control without fertilizers (CK). High-throughput sequencing was applied to analyze the eukaryotic diversity and community structure. Results showed that the dominant eukaryotic microorganisms among soil samples were Fungi, Viridiplantae, Metazoa and Protist. Although α-diversity was not significantly different among the five treatments, principal coordinate analysis and permutational multivariate analysis of variance illustrated significant differences (p < 0.001) in β-diversity of eukaryotic microorganism under treatments with different organic materials. Redundancy analysis showed that the soil properties, including total potassium, available nitrogen, available potassium and organic matter were the main factors attributed to eukaryotic microorganisms’ community structure in this region.