Abstract: To understand the effects of agricultural management activities on soil arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi diversity, the high-throughput sequencing based on Illumina MiSeq platform, and the fatty acids fingerprints were used to examine the effects of maize straw returning on soil arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. The relationships between AM fungal community composition, AM fungal biomass and soil factors after maize straw returning were examined for four continuous years. A total of 2430 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) of AM fungi were classified into 10 genera and 143 species, respectively, which belonged to 1 phylum, 3 classes, 4 orders, 8 families. There was no significant difference in AM fungal community richness (Chaoles index and ACE index) and diversity (Shannon, Simpson diversity indices) in different treatments. Paraglomus and Glomus were dominant genera among all AM fungal communities. With the increase of the maize straw returned amounts, the abundance of Glomus reduced. Under the treatments of 3000 and 9000 kg·hm^-2 straw returned, the abundance of Glomus and Acaulospora had significant differences with the control (0 kg·hm^-2). Compared with the control, there were significant differences between Archaeospora, Paraglomus and Glomus in the treatment of 3000 kg·hm^-2 straw returned. Results from non-metric multi-dimensional scale (NMDS) analysis showed that under 9000 and 12000 kg·hm^-2 straw returning treatments, the difference between the β diversity of soil AM fungi and the spatial distance of controls was farther apart than the other treatments. The effect of straw returning on the β diversity of AM fungi was significant. The multivariate analysis results revealed the relationship of the spatial variation between the soil physicochemical properties and AM fungi richness and diversity could be explained at 82.8% cumulative variables. The total nitrogen and available nitrogen were the most important factors driving soil microbial communities biomass marked by PLFAs and AM fungal biomass (NLFAs). The continuous maize straw returning to the field changed the genera composition of AM fungi. With the increases of straw returning amounts, the specific species of AM fungi decreased and the similarity between AM fungi community composition decreased. Straw returning increased soil AM fungi biomass and its contribution to soil total microbial biomass.