The Characteristics Of Soil Faunal In Longwan Nature Reserve Forest And The Division Of Functional Groups

Soil fauna are decomposers and consumers, they are an important part and play animportant role in forest ecosystems. Their survival, feeding and activity have an importantinfluence on soil formation, maturation, and material cycling in the ecosystem and energyconversion. Longwan Nature Reserve is located in the middle of the Longgang Mountains,which is a part of the Changbai Mountain. In this paper, we conducted a experiment in4forest type in Longwan Nature Reserve to explore the characteristics of soil faunal and thedivision of functional groups. The experimence not only has important theoretical significance,but also provide a scientific basis for rational use, management and sustainable developmentof the Longwan Nature Reserve, balance of forest ecosystems and forest resources. Thereforethe present study has important practical value.In May, July, September2011, The soil fauna was studied in four representative forest ofLongwan Nature Reserve (Abies and broad-leaved mixed forest, pine and broad-leaved mixedforest, shaw, Mongolian oak forest). We collected macro-fauna by hand, and meso-fauna byTullgren.The study includes the community composition, distribution characteristics, diversityand guilds of soil fauna, and to explore the relationship between soil fauna and theirenvironment factors.In total, we got25686individuals of59groups, which belonged to38families,24orders,37classes and3phyla in the forest of Longwan Nature Reserve. The dominant group areIsotomidae and Oribatida, the common groups have11groups, they areProstigmata,Enchytraeidae, Mesostigmata, Formicoidea, Neanaridae, Entomobryidae, Diptera,Geophilomorpha, Tomoceridae, Lithobiomorpha, Spirobolus. we collected41groups ofmacro-fauna in Longwan Nature Reserve, Enchytraeidae and Formicoidea are dominantgroup and thers individual number takes up63.10%; we also collected44groups ofmeso-fauna, the dominant group are Isotomidae, Oribatida and prostigmata and thersindividual number takes up73.72%. These groups is a major component of soil fauna in theforest of Longwan Nature Reserve.Longwan Nature Reserve within the forest types of soil fauna’s distribution is uniform,Little difference between the number of individuals and the group, but to seasons changing,from the seasonal variation,the number of individuals and groups in summer are abundant.The vertical distribution of soil fauna in the different forest types showing obvious tablecohesion, each soil layer changes significantly between seasons. The diversity performance ofsoil fauna community in four typical forest is not consistent, Abies and broad-leaved mixedforest soil macrofauna and soil mesofauna’s diversity index, evenness index and richnessindex are the lowest, on the contrary, the highest dominance. Individual number of soil faunain this forest is more and unevenly distributed among the various types of group. Shaw andMongolian oak forest have high diversity index, and red pine broad-leaved mixed forest in thehighest uniformity.The results of the survey indicate that the soil fauna have four guilds in the study area, they are phytophage soil faunna, predacity soil faunna, saprozoite soil faunna, Omnivoroussoil fauna, of which the saprozoite soil faunna was predominant guild compared with otherthree guilds in number of individuals. These functional groups of soil fauna have the role topromote circulation and nutrient flow on ecosystems. The results of Pearson correlation showsthat,both the individuals and groups of macro-fauna shows a significant positive correlationwith the soil total nitrogen and soil organic matter content; and the individuals of mesro-faunashows a positive correlation with the soil total nitrogen,soil organic matter content and soilmoisture content，but the negative correlation with the pH, as for, the groups of meso-faunashows a obvious positive correlation with the soil total nitrogen, soil organic matter contentand soil moisture content, while, the negative correlation with the pH and soil totalphosphorus. Therefore, between soil envoironmental factors and soil fauna has a closerelationship.