Abstract: By the method of hand-sorting, and using the indices individual numbe
r, group number, and biodiversity, the changes in the soil macrofaunal community
 under the grassland restoration from cropland in Wuchuan County, Inner Mongolia
 were investigated. A total of 1479 soil macrofauna belonging to 3 classes, 7 or
ders and 41 families were captured. After the grassland restoration from croplan
d, the group number, individual number, and biomass of soil macrofauna all had a
n increasing trend, and the biodiversity of soil macrofaunal community reflected
 by DMa and DG increased significantly. However, due to the short term of crop
land rehabilitation, the Shannon-Wiener index H′ and the Pielou evenness index
 E of the soil microfaunal community in grassland were not higher than those in
cropland. Different soil macrofaunal groups had different responses to the grass
land restoration from cropland. The preferable approaches for the grassland rest
oration from cropland were planting Medicago sativa or planting Medicago s
ativa+Artemisia sp.

Key words: grassland restoration from cropland, soil macrofaunal, community characteristics, blossom stage, nitrogen nutrition, remote sensing retrieval., apple tree