3.1.1 Variation in the community structures of prokaryotes and fungi
The microbial diversities of soils with different water level in short- and long-term drainage sites were characterized through partial 16S rRNA and ITS2 region gene sequencing. A total of 1,266,722 and 1,298,041 highquality sequences were analyzed for prokaryote and fungi, respectively. The prokaryotic and fungal community structures of different treatments were evaluated according to β-diversity using NMDS analysis and PERMANOVA test (Figure 2a and 2b). We found that water table and drainage age have significant effects on prokaryotic structure (PERMANOVA, p < 0.001 and p = 0.008) and fungal (PERMANOVA, p < 0.001 and p = 0.002) communities in Zoige peatlands. Additionally, both the prokaryotic and fungal communities of low-water table treatments (LWT: L2 and S2) was significantly different from that in intermediate water table treatments (IWT: L10 and S10) and high water table treatments (HWT: L50 and S50) (Figure 2a and 2b, PERMANOVA, p < 0.001 for both), but the difference of prokaryotic and fungal communities between IWT and HWT were also significant (p = 0.006 and p = 0.008, respectively). The differences caused by water table were significantly greater than those associated with drainage age (Figure 2a and 2b), indicating that the influence of water table on microbial community structures was greater than that of drainage age.