Soil animals are an important component part of the terrestrial ecosystem, and they could be used as indicator species to monitor and evaluate soil quality and health with effects on material cycles. The investigations were conducted on soil animal communities of the subalpine meadow in MiyaluO area, located in northwestern Sichuan, in November of 2007 and April of 2008. A total of 320 large-sized soil animals, belonging to 2 phyla, 4 classes and 15 groups or orders, and 6,081 middle-small-sized soil animals, belonging to 4 phyla, 7 classes and 16 groups or orders, were collected. The dominant groups of the large-sized soil animal community were Diptera larvae, Coleoptera larvae and Coleoptera adult while that of the middle-small-sized soil animal community was Nematoda. The community structures of soil animals changed significantly between the winter and spring, but the groups and individual numbers between the two seasons did not change significantly (P> 0. 05). The Margalef index of the middle-small-sized soil animal community significantly declined from winter to spring (P<0. 05) but the other diversity indexes did not change significantly. The number of groups or individual soil animals decreased significantly (P<0. 05) with soil depth but the differences between the seasons of spring and winter were not significant. The species compositions of soil animal communities in subalpine meadow ecosystems in northwestern Sichuan have higher individual densities that are different from those of the grassland ecosystems in the north of China.
国家科技期刊平台
NSTL
维普
万方数据
