In this study, the researcheres investigated soil microfauna communities across six major land-use/cover types of natural grassland and 5 differently managed artificial systems (21-year-old planted shrubland, 28-year-old Poplar and 33-year-old Pinus plantations, and 27- and 100-year-old croplands) converted from natural grassland in an arid region of northwest China. The data were used to quantify the combined effects of land-cover change and management disturbances on the dynamics of soil microfauna communities. The conversion of natural grassland to unmanaged planted shrubland did not cause a significant change in the structure of the microfauna community, while the conversion of natural shrubland to managed Poplar and Pinus plantations and croplands significantly increased abundance, richness and diversity of the microfauna community. Multivariate and path analyses showed that the assembly of soil microfauna communities was significantly affected by the combination of land-cover change (indicated by vegetation cover), irrigation and fertilization, but the irrigation disturbance was the most important driver. The response of soil microfauna to irrigation, fertilization and vegetation cover varied among different components of the assemblages. Overall, irrigation had the greatest contribution to observed variation in the abundance and species richness of Collembola, Oribatida and Gamasida, while fertilization was more important than irrigation and vegetation cover to variation in the abundance and species richness of Actinetidida, and both irrigation and fertilization contributed to variation in the abundance and species richness of the rare group. Our results suggest that land-cover change and management disturbances interact in shaping soil microfauna community dynamics, but irrigation was identified to be the most important structuring force in soil fauna communities in this arid environment.

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