Mercury (Hg) is a global pollutant and poses a worldwide concern due to its high ecological risk. Ecological monitoring of mercury pollution in Danzhai Mercury Mine Area was studied using bryophytes by means of a systematic sampling design in the field and a physicochemical analysis in the laboratory. Geochemical characteristics, species abundance, community types and community components of bryophytes in this mining area were investigated. Four kinds of habitats with different mercury pollution levels were sampled in the field. Slage area and Mullock area are both serious mercury pollution areas in the Danzhai Mercury Mine Area, and Gaopai area was 4 km and Jingzhong area was 8 km away from mercury pollution area respectively. A 10 m? 2 m plot was subdivided into 15 subplots 10 cm?10 cm in size. In each subplot the position of a first sample unit was determined randomly. From the first sample unit of each subplot a second sample unit was taken at a random angle. This sampling strategy resulted in a total of 180 sample units and aimed at a regular coverage of the sampling area. The results showed that a total of 85 bryophyte species belong to 20 families and 34 genera were found, and Bryaceae and Pottiaceae were the dominant families. The mercury content in all habitats were about ten times higher than the Grade Ⅲ (pH＞6.5，Hg≤1.5 mg?kg-1) of National Soil Environmental Quality Standard of China (GB15618-1995). It suggests that the Danzhai Mercury Mine Area had been seriously polluted by mercury. With Regression Analysis, a significant positive correlation (P＜0.01) was found between mercury contents in the bryophytes Bryum argenteum, Bryum caespiticium, Haplocladium angustifolium and in their substrates, and the reliability coefficients (R) were all greater than 0.9. It explains that if the habitats mercury polluted seriously, the mercury content in bryophytes which grew in the habitats would be increased remarkably. Therefore, the geochemical characteristics of the three species could be used as an indicator of mercury pollution in Danzhai Mercury Mine Area. The best species suited for monitoring mercury pollution was Bryum caespiticium, followed by Haplocladium angustifolium, and for Bryum argenteum in this study area. The index of species abundance of bryophytes were -0.73, -0.54, 1.32 and -0.05 respectively in Slage area, Mullock area, Gaopai area and Jinzhong area, and the bryophytes abundance were lower in the seriously polluted areas while higher in the lightly polluted areas. It demonstrates that the bryophyte abundance was suitable for monitoring mercury pollution in this mine area. In the component of community aspect, the number of single-species communities was reduced gradually while the multi-species communities composed of three or more bryophyte species increased observably, and the number of communities composed with two species was not remarkable from the seriously polluted areas to the lightly polluted areas. This phenomenon shows that the community structure component was simple in the seriously mercury pollution areas, but the structural component was more complex in the slightly pollution areas. Therefore, the characteristics of bryophyte community might be one of the indexes of ecological monitoring in Danzhai Mercury Mine Area. Moreover, species abundance and community types of bryophytes increased in transition zone between polluted and less polluted regions (Gaopai area). This may be an obvious edge affect. Therefore, when ecological monitoring in mining areas according to species abundance and community type abundance of bryophytes are considered one should consider the community edge effect.