Abstract: To clarify the impact of the long-term application of organic material on the diversity and community structure of soil meso-micro arthropods in dryland spring maize fields, we adopted the Tullgren funnel method to investigate the number and community diversity of meso-micro arthropods in the soil with five-year continuous combined application of organic materials. There were eight treatments in the experiment, including no fertilization (CK), chemical fertilizer alone (F), chemical fertilizer combined with one and two times the amount of straw (FS and F2S), cattle manure (FM and F2M), and swine manure (FC and F2C). The results showed that Oribatida and Prostigmata were the dominant taxa across all treatments. Combined application of organic materials increased the density of Acariformes, Parasiformes, and Collembola. Soil arthropod density under the straw-amended treatments was 1.1-3.2 times that of the other treatments (P<0.001), while species diversity and evenness were decreased. The evenness was 10.6%-14.5% higher under cattle manure treatment than under the other treatments (P<0.01). Principal co-ordinate analysis indicated that community composition under straw treatments markedly differed from other treatments. Community changes in the straw, cattle, and swine manure treatments were primarily driven by species turnover. These findings elucidated the response patterns of soil arthropods to organic material application in dryland maize fields, offering valuable insights into optimizing fertilization practice and sustaining soil environmental stability.

Key words: soil meso-micro arthropod, organic materials return, dryland maize, α-diversity, β-diversity