Community Structure and Diversity of Soil Macro-arthropod in the Forest-steppe Ecotone

To understand the composition and structure of soil macro-arthropod community and diversity of soil macro-arthropod community,soil macro-arthropods were investigated in the forest-steppe ecotone in northern Hebei Province.A total of 2 134 individuals of soil macro-arthropods were collected,which belonged to 6 classes,18 orders.The dominant orders were Hymenoptera and Araneae,Homoptera,Lepidoptera,Coleoptera,Coleoptera larva,Diptera larva,Lithobiomorpha and Geophilomorpha were common orders,and others were rare orders.The highest groups of soil arthropod were in the forest zone,and the increased abundance of rare groups in the forest zone with the richer vegetation,higher arthropod abundance and more substantial litter depth,could be interpreted as a reaction to the suitable soil environment.And these rare groups were sensitive to soil environmental changes,which could be regarded as biotic indicators for evaluating soil ecological environment.The DG index was better than the Shannon-Wiener index(H′) in indicating the diversity of soil fauna community.Using the hierarchical cluster and the non-matric multi-dimensional scaling,the nine plots were classified into three groups: forest group,forest-steppe group and meadow-steppe group.The interconnect degree between soil pH and the groups was maximum,while the interconnect degree between ground temperature and the individuals was maximum.