Afforestation has been proposed as an effective method to restore the degraded limestone mountains, information on the biological succession and mechanisms of ground-dwelling arthropod assemblage is important for enhancing biodiversity conservation after the establishment of ecological afforestation. In this study, the vegetation community composition structure, species diversity and functional group structure were investigated on a typical rocky mountain area in the North of Anhui Province China, in order to reveal variation of diversity of ground-dwelling arthropod communities during the vegetation recovery of degraded ecosystem, which will provide scientific references for evaluating the benefit of vegetation restoration. We used pitfall traps to capture of ground-dwelling arthropods within three vegetation restoration measures, i.e., the artificial mixed forest of Platycladus orientalis and Broussonetia papyrifera possess (MFPB), the shrub of Ziziphus jujuba var. spinosa and V. negundo var. cannabifolia (SZV) and the grass-shrub of Arthraxon hispidus (Thunb.) Makino and V. negundo var. cannabifolia (GSAV). A total of 11 601 individuals of ground-dwelling arthropod were collected, belonging to 8 insecta, 14 orders and 44 families. There were 37, 35 and 26 families under SZV, GSAV and MFPB, accounting for 84.1%, 79.6% and 59.1% of the total fauna, respectively. The relative abundance of Orthoptera, Isopoda and Coleoptera was the highest in the taxonomy of the order, and Oniscidae, Scarabacidae, Formicidae and Gryllidae were the dominant group in the taxonomy of the family in the three vegetation restoration measures in the typical rocky mountain area in Northern of Anhui province. The largest values of richness and diversity were found under SZV and GSAV, respectively, while MFPB have the lowest value of richness and diversity. Phytophagous was the main functional group in three vegetation communities. The similarities of ground-dwelling arthropod fauna differed among different vegetation types, with the highest similarity between SZV and GSAV and the lowest similarity between MFPB and other 2 vegetation types. The results of this study indicated that heterogeneity of soil physical-chemical properties, amount and quality of ground litter, and micro-environment condition, which were derived by different vegetation composition and structure of vegetation community, affected the variation of community composition, structure and functional group of arthropods. The long-term changes in ground-dwelling arthropod assemblage were comprehensive responses to the variations of soil physical-chemical properties and vegetation characteristic after the establishment of afforestation.