Studying the forest community succession by understanding the characteristics of plant community composition and structure is an important way to explore the degradation and restoration processes, as well as the related mechanisms of forest communities. The study also has important theoretical and practical significance for guiding the conservation and restoration of natural forests. In 2018, relevant data was gathered by the second investigation in the Subtropical Evergreen Broad-leaved Forest plot with an area of 9.6 hm² in the Wuyi Mountains, Fujian Province, southeastern China. Community dynamics of arbor layer was analyzed based on the perspectives of importance value, species abundance, species richness, Shannon-Wiener Index, Simpson Index, Margalef Index, Pielou Index, mortality rate, recruitment rate, rate of population size change, fitness, and coefficient of diameter at breast height (DBH) variation. The results showed that the community of trees was 48 families, 88 genera, 174 species in 2018, which increased by 1 species compared with 2013. Margalef Index rose, while Shannon-Wiener Index, Simpson Index and Pielou Index declined in the past 5 years. The tree individuals with DBH ≥ 1 cm was reduced from 68336 to 63897, with 7430 dead, and 2991 recruited individuals. Annual mortality rate, annual recruitment rate, rate of population size change, and fitness of the community were 2.30%, 0.96%, -1.34%, and 0.42, respectively. The average DBH of all trees in this community increased from 5.02 (±0.02) cm to 5.49 (±0.03) cm. The total of importance value for the 28 common tree species with higher importance value (>1%) decreased from 71.92% in 2013 to 71.81% in 2018. Annual mortality rate, annual recruitment rate, rate of population size change, and fitness for these common species were 2.46%, 0.79%, -1.67% and 0.46, respectively. The increase of species number and decrease of total tree individuals of community caused a direct impact on the increase of Margalef Richness Index. The decrease of common species and the increase of rare species indicated that the general disturbance would have a greater impact on the population of common species. The lack of constructive species or dominant species and the close dominance of many species may lead to high mortality rate and low recruitment rate of tree species in the same canopy layer for some resources such as light. The difficulty of population regeneration of sun plants such as Alniphyllum fortune, Schima superba may mean that the community has changed in favor of medium and shade plants.