We investigated how soil microbial composition and their diversity are impacted by meadow degradation.
We analyzed how the changes in microbial community with degradation correlated to shifts in plant and soil attributes.
Neither bacterial nor fungal diversity paralleled plant diversity with degradation.
Higher sensitivity of fungal community to meadow degradation than bacterial community was found.
Severe meadow degradation apparently increased the relative abundance of pathogenic fungi compared with original meadow.