Effects of Regular Water Replenishment on Enzyme Activities and Fungal Metabolic Function of Sheep Manure Composting on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau

Abstract

The dry climate characteristics of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau will seriously affect microbial metabolism during composting. In this study, we aimed to investigate the effects of regular water supplementation on the fungal and enzymatic activities of sheep manure composting in the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau. The experiment set up the treatments of water replenishment once every 7 days(T2) and 3.5 days (T3) days, and no water supplementation was used as the control (T1). The results showed that regular water supplementation increased the activities of various enzymes during composting, and the activities of protease, cellulase, peroxidase and polyphenol oxidase in T3 were higher than those in T2. Regular water supplementation increased the relative abundance of Remersonia and Mycothermus, which were significantly positively correlated with the germination index, and degradation of organic components. Regular water supplementation could enrich fungi carbohydrate, protein, and nucleotide metabolisms, and T3 had a better effect. A redundancy analysis showed that environmental factors could significantly affect the fungal community; among them, moisture content (76.9%, p = 0.002) was the greatest contributor. In conclusion, regular water supplementation can improve the key enzyme activities and fungal metabolic function of sheep manure composting, and water replenishment once every 3.5 days had the best effect.