Abstract:In order to explore the community characteristics of soil fauna and its relationship with environmental factors in different microhabitats in the fine scale, soil fauna community of litter layer and humus layer were investigated and the related environmental factors were determined in a subtropical evergreen broad-leaved forest of the west slope of Jinfo Mountain in October 2018. A total of 12381 individuals belonging to 3 phyla, 9 classes and 22 orders were found in this investigation. Among them, Entomobryomorpha and Acarina were dominant groups, accounting for 75.24% of the total number of individuals, while Podurompha, Symphyleona, Neelipleona, Diptera, Coleoptera and Hymenoptera were common groups, accounting for 21.23% of the total number of individuals. Meanwhile, soil fauna density (M), Shannon-Wiener diversity index (H), Simpson dominance index (D) and Pielou evenness index (E) were significantly higher in humus layer than in litter layer (P<0.01). According to the regression analysis and redundancy analysis, some differences were revealed in the relationships between the community characteristics of soil fauna and environmental factors of the two microhabitats. Total organic carbon, carbon nitrogen ratio, humidity and pH of litter were found to be the important factors influencing soil fauna community characteristics of litter layer. Nevertheless, dry weight, total nitrogen, total phosphorus, humidity, pH and microbial biomass nitrogen of humus were verified to be the important factors affecting soil fauna community characteristics of humus layer. Overall, the results showed that there were significant differences in the diversity characteristics of soil fauna between different microhabitats in the evergreen broad-leaved forest, and environmental factors had important influence on the community characteristics of soil fauna in the fine scale.