Abstract: To understand the community diversity of cave animals and its influencing factors in mining area, a survey was conducted in March 2019 on the cave animals of Xianjia cave and Yiku cave in Songtao Mining Area, Guizhou Province. The effects of environmental factors on the diversity of cave animal communities were analyzed by Principal Component Analysis (PCA), and the ecological risk level of soil heavy metals in caves was evaluated by the Hakanson potential ecological hazard index. A total of 445 animal specimens were collected, belonging to 4 phyla, 8 classes, 18 orders, 32 families, with 178 specimens being collected from Xianjia cave (38 species) and 267 being collected from Yiku cave (32 species). The highest Shannon index, Margalef index, Evenness index, and Simpson index were found in light zone of Yiku cave (2.6222), light zone of Xianjia cave (6.0164), weak-light zone of Xianjia cave (0.9314), and dark zone of Xianjia cave (0.4027), respectively. Species richness, Shannon index, and Margalef index decreased in the order of light zone > weak-light zone > dark zone. The similarity index between the animal communities of Xianjia cave and Yiku cave was relatively low. PCA results showed that soil organic matter content, soil heavy metal pollution, air CO₂ concentration, cave temperature, and soil Ca content were the main environmental factors affecting the animal community diversity in both caves. The results of risk assessment of potential ecological hazards indicated that Xianjia cave and Yiku cave were at high ecological risk and extremely high ecological risk, respectively. Furthermore, Cd is the primary pollution factor in both caves.

Key words: cave animal, community diversity, environmental factor, principal component analysis, Songtao Mining Area.