Effect of manure application on soil protistan community in Ultisols

Protists are highly diverse and abundant in soils and play critical roles in ecosystem functioning. Predatory protists are particularly important in soil food webs since they can predate bacteria, fungi and other microbial eukaryotes, which are fundamental drivers for soil multifunctionality and plant performance. In this project, we investigated the communities of predatory protists and their associations with AOMs in four aggregate fractions of soils subjected to various long-term organic substitutions. We collected soils (0-20 cm) from a long-term fertilization experiment established in April 1988 at the Yingtan Red Soil Ecology Experimental Station, Jiangxi, China. We try to shed light on the effect of manure application on soil protistan community in Ultisols.