The rhizosphere is an important interface for the exchange of materials and energy between the plant and the environment. As a result, research on investigating the rhizosphere effect has become an area of considerable interest in the field of soil ecology. However, research reports on responses of soil fauna to the rhizosphere effect of soybean are lacking. Soil nematode communities can provide important information about soil food web structure and function because they are the most abundant metazoan and ubiquitous in soil. In the present study, the soil nematode trophic composition, colonizer-persister (c-p) scale (1-5) group structure, functional structure index, as well as the diversity between the rhizosphere and non-rhizosphere areas of a soybean field were investigated. The aim of the present study was to understand the effect of rhizosphere effects on soil nematode community composition and diversity. Five plots of 10 m×10 m were selected in soybean field, which had been converted from marshland in the Sanjiang Plain of China, and continuously cultivated with soybean for 15 years. The soybean rhizosphere was collected by the Root-Shaking method, using a 2.5 cm diameter core, and sampling the soil range 0-10 cm in depth. The non-rhizosphere soil samples were collected at a depth of 10 cm. A total of 4021 nematodes were identified and classified into 12 families and 16 genera, and further divided into 4 trophic groups and 9 functional guilds. The abundance of Acrobeloides (Ba2), Aphelenchoides (Fu2), and Heterodera (H3) in the soybean rhizosphere were significantly higher than those in the non-rhizosphere soil (P < 0.01). The results showed that the total number of nematodes and Simpson's diversity (Dom) in rhizosphere soil were significantly higher than those in the non-rhizosphere soil (P < 0.01). In addition, the number of nematode species (S), and species richness index (SR) in the rhizosphere were significantly lower. These results indicate that the rhizosphere effect of soybean increased the abundance of soil nematodes, but reduced the complexity of the nematode community structure. The abundance of fungivores (FF), bacterivores (BF), and plant-parasitic nematodes (PP) were significantly higher in the rhizosphere than in the non-rhizosphere soil (P < 0.01). The proportion of plant-parasitic nematode (PP) taxa in rhizosphere was significantly lower than that in non-rhizosphere soil (P < 0.01). Furthermore, the ratios of microbivorous nematodes (FF and BF) in soybean rhizosphere soil increased significantly (P < 0.01). The ratio of fungi-feeding to bacteria-feeding nematodes (F/B) indicated that the soybean rhizosphere bacterial biomass was relatively higher than the fungal biomass.