Abstract:

The paper aims to investigate the characteristics and driving mechanisms of soil fauna communities in different urban forest types. In this study, 27 samples of three forest types (road forest, affiliated forest, and landscape forest) were selected in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, and the vegetation characteristics, soil physicochemical properties and soil fauna distribution characteristics were investigated and measured. A total of 1755 soil fauna were captured in this study, belonging to 21 orders and 11 phyla in 2 families, among which the dominant taxa were 3 groups of Collembola, Parasitiformes and Acariformes; the common taxa were Archaeopteryx, Sphingidae, Diptera, Symphyta, Hemiptera and Hymenoptera; the remaining 12 taxa were rare and very few in number. Among all forest types, the highest density of soil fauna was found in road forest with 5742 individuals/m², followed by affiliated forest and landscape forest with densities of 1979 and 1978 individuals/m², respectively, and the soil fauna evenness index and richness index of road forest were significantly lower than those of landscape forest and affiliated forest. Vegetation characteristics and soil physicochemical properties had significant correlation with soil fauna diversity, and soil fauna Shannon’s diversity index was significantly and positively correlated with soil available phosphorus, tree height, diameter at breast height and crown width, but Pielou homogeneity index and Menhinnick richness index were both negatively correlated with pH, electrical conductivity and bulk density. Although the density of soil fauna in road forest was the highest, the species richness was the lowest, and the variation in vegetation characteristics was the key factor that led to the difference in soil fauna among different forest types.

Key words: urban forest, soil fauna community, soil fauna diversity, vegetation characteristics, soil physicochemical properties, forest types, Nanchang