Abstract: The polymerase chain reactiondenaturing gradient gel electrophoresis(PCRDGGE) was used to investigate the community structure and species diversity of ammoniaoxidizing archaea(AOA) during poultry species composting. The results show that the AOA community structure and species diversity at different stages of chicken manure composting are markedly changed, and the band b, which shows 96% similarity to the AOA HH-2(GU2258721) and band m, which shows 99% similarity to the uncultured Crenarchaeote NM-152(HQ8752251), represent the major AOA bacterial species during the composting. The bands c, b, f and i, and the bands m, k, l and n represent the species of the two populations of bacteria, respectively. ShannonWeiner index (H) and evenness index (EH) of the AOA colonies are different at different stages of the composting, and the following order is: day 30day 5day 25day 45day 3day 12day 1day 15 The redundancy analysis of the AOA colonies at different stages of the composting shows that the AOA colony evolution is all significantly affected by the composting temperature, whole nitrogen, ammonia nitrogen and nitrate nitrogen (P005), while pH is not affected. The AOA community structure is changed markedly on days 1, 5, 15, 30 and 45 of the composting. These results indicate that several parameters could control AOA community structure during composting of chicken manure.