Decomposition of Schima superba leaf litter and dynamics change of soil meso-micro arthropods community structure in evergreen broad-leaved forest fragments

Taking four evergreen broad-leaved forest fragments within the adjacent mountainous region of Zhejiang, Fujian, and Jiangxi provinces as study objects, and the continuous forest in Gutianshan National Natural Reserve as the control, an investigation was made by litter bag method from June 2004 to April 2006, aimed to understand the community structure and its dynamics change of soil meso-micro arthropods during the decomposition of Schima superba leaf litter. A total of 1050 soil meso-miero arthropods belonging to 8 classes and 23 orders were collected, among which, Lepidoptera, Hymenoptera, Collembola and Diptera were the dominant taxa. The impact of habitat fragmentation on the community composition of soil arthropods was mainly manifested in the differences of rare taxa, and the dominance of different taxa at different decomposition stages of S. superba leaf litter varied with the functions of the taxa in litter decomposition. After two-year decomposition, the mass loss of S. superba leaf litter was 60%-70%, and the species diversity indices of soil arthropods showed certain changes, being different between forest fragments and continuous forest.