The purpose of this study is to investigate the response of the soil mesofauna and ground-dwelling arthropods to vegetation structure and composition in a mountain pasture. The pasture mainly comprised five types of plant communities; Agrostis alba - Phleum pratense community, Poa pratensis community, Festuca ovina community, Rumex acetosella community, and the shrub assemblage comprised Spiraea miyabei-Spiraea salicifolia community. Soil chemical properties including the pH, EC and nutrient levels were influenced by plant communities. Plant-specific responses were observed for bacteria-feeding and plant-feeding soil nematodes. Collembola and Oribatida having the same feeding habit were influenced differently by plants. nMDS showed that the community of ground-dwelling arthropods were separated by vegetation types. Species numbers of arthropods were different among different plant communities. Our results indicate that vegetation structure and composition can influence both abundance of diversity of terrestrial fauna.

Ground arthropods are abundant in urban ecosystem, but our understanding on their ecological traits is little. The aim of this study is to clarify the effect of urbanization on ground arthropod communities. Ground arthropods were monitored once a week from April to December 2005 in 6 sites: Yamato River riverbank (Site 1), Daisen Park (Site 2), Oizumi forest area (Site 3), Osaka Prefecture University campus (Site 4), Paddy field (Site 5), and Satoyama (Site 6). A total of 221,000 individuals of ground arthropods belonging to 19 orders were collected in 6 sites. Isopoda including Porcellionidae and Armadillidiidae was the 1st dominant and 195161 individuals were collected, representing 88.3% of the total. Mean density of ground arthropods in Site 1- 4, urbanized areas, was much higher than in paddy field and Satoyama. Pattern of ground arthropod community in riverbank did not differ with those of urban park, urban forest area, and campus. Our finding showed that ground arthropods in urban area tend to increase biomass and specific groups in area disturbed and urbanized by human activities.