Abstract: In winter 2006 and spring 2007, an investigation was made on the soil mesofauna under four land use patterns (field margin, farmland, orchard, and forestland returned from farmland) in purple soil hilly area of Sichuan Basin. A total of 5756 soil mesofauna individuals belonging to 8 classes were captured. The community structure of soil mesofauna in study area varied significantly with land use pattern. Field margin, orchard, and forestland had a significantly higher individual density than farmland both in winter and in spring, and a significantly higher DG diversity index than farmland in spring. The individual density and group number of soil mesofauna all decreased with increasing soil depth, but the surface gathering of individual density was more obvious than that of group number. Land use pattern strongly affected the community structure of soil mesofauna, and field margin and forestland played important roles in conserving the diversity of soil mesofauna.

Key words: Forest ecosystem, Forest ecosystem health, Health assessing, Approaches