Abstract: The invasion and settlement of soil animals is an important pathway of the formation of soil animal community structure in abandoned mine land. With the increasing duration of discarding, the abandoned mine land has a changing soil animal community structure,which plays an important role in the ecosystem succession and ecological restoration of the abandoned land. This paper reviewed the ecological environment, settlement, and community succession of soil animals in abandoned mine land, the effects of soil animals’ activity on soil processes, as well as the responses and indications of soil animals to the environment. Based on the comprehensive analysis of related researches, some problems to be urgently solved on the study of soil animals in abandoned mine land were analyzed, and future research directions needed to be strengthened were proposed.

Key words: Dinoflagellate cyst, Changjiang River estuary, Red tide