Abstract: The phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) technique was used to investigate the effects of fertilization on soil characteristics and microbial community of tomato in a solar greenhouse in Shouguang, Shandong Province, China, based on a long-term (12-year) fertilization experiment. The experiment involved a control (CK) and five fertilization treatments, namely, traditional nitrogen application (CN), traditional nitrogen application+straw return (CNS), optimized nitrogen application (SN), optimized nitrogen application+straw return (SNS), and organic manure nitrogen application+straw return (MNS). Results showed that the contents of soil organic matter and avai-lable P and K under all fertilization treatments were significantly higher than that of CK, but no significant difference among fertilization treatments. The traditional nitrogen application (i.e., CN and CNS) significantly decreased soil pH. The reduction of nitrogen fertilizer (i.e., SN, SNS and MNS) did not affect soil pH. Compared with CK, no straw treatment (i.e., CN and SN) and MNS did not affect the content of soil available N, but nitrogen combined with straw returned (i.e., CNS and SNS) significantly increased soil available N content. The optimized N with straw return (i.e., SNS) treatment resulted in the highest soil available N. Compared with CK and treatments without straw (i.e., CN, SN), treatments with straw (i.e., MNS, CNS and SNS) substantially changed soil microbial community structure and increased the biomass of soil bacteria, fungi, actinomycetes, mycorrhizal fungi, and the total amount of PLFA. SNS treatment had the highest soil microbial diversity, the highest biomass of soil bacteria, fungi, and actinomycetes, the highest total amount of PLFA, the highest ratios of fungi/bacteria and monounsaturated fatty acids/saturated fatty acids (MONO/SAT), the two indicators for soil ecosystem stability. Further, it had the lowest ratios of iso/anteiso fatty acids (i/a) and gram-positive/gram-negative bacteria (G⁺/G^-), the indicators for nutritional stress. Redundancy and correlation analysis revealed that soil organic matter was the main factor affecting soil microbial community structure, with a significant positive correlation with actinomycetes and gram-positive bacteria. In conclusion, straw returning combined with optimized nitrogen application (i.e., SNS, 8 t·hm^-2 of wheat straw with N fertilizer reduced by 58.3%) could improve soil nutrient status, soil microbial biomass, soil microbial community structure, and soil ecological environment. It would be an effective measure for reducing fertilizer application and improving efficiency.

Key words: long-term straw returning, optimized nitrogen application, soil nutrient, soil microorganism