Abstract: In recent years, the area of herbal medicine planting is rapidly increasing. The effects of planting herbal medicines on soil invertebrate communities are still unclear. To reveal the effects of planting different herbal medicines on the soil microarthropod communities, soil microarthropods in two fields of planting Coptis chinensis and Paris polyphylla for 3-year and 5-year, respectively, were investigated in Pengzhou, Chengdu in July 2020. A total of 526 individuals of soil microarthropods were recorded and classified into 4 classes, 17 orders, 69 families, and 98 genera or taxonomic groups. The communities were dominated by Isotoma, Piatynothrus, Folsomia, and Paranura. The community structure of soil microarthropods differed obviously among the two herbal medicine fields, with the main influencing taxonomic groups of Proisotoma, Ocesobates and Epicridae. The total taxonomic group richness of soil microarthropods were richer in C. chinensis field than P. polyphylla field. There was no significant difference in the abundance and diversity index between the two fields. With the increases of cultivating years, the abundance of soil microarthropods in C. chinensis field declined significantly, and Shannon index increased significantly in P. polyphylla field. The redundancy analysis showed that the community structure of soil microarthropods was mainly affected by soil available N, pH, total K, and available K. It suggested that the effects of cultivating herbal medicines on soil microarthropod communities differed between herbal medicine species. Therefore, we recommended to intercrop C. chinensis and P. polyphylla for maintaining the stability of soil microarthropod diversity and promoting ecosystem function.

Key words: herbal medicine planting, soil fauna, community composition structure, diversity