Objective: Logging used to be one of the main human disturbance activities in the Daxing'anling Mountains. This study aimed to provide a basis for maintaining the forest soil fauna ecosystem stability by investigating the effects of severe harvest cutting on the ground-dwelling arthropod community in coniferous and broadleaf mixed forests in the Daxing'anling Mountains.Method: In the beginning of June and the end of August, 2017, we investigated the response of ground-dwelling arthropods to cutting disturbance by pitfall traps in natural secondary Larix gmelinii-Betula platyphylla mixed forests (referred to as CK), the deforested land where the forest was cut about 10 to 15 years ago (referred to as A), and the deforested land that was logged more than 30 years ago (referred to as B) in Songling Forest Station, the eastern part of the Daxing'anling Mountains.Result: During the study period, a total of 78 924 individual arthropods were captured with 1 458 pitfalls in the early of June and the end of August 2017, belonging to 109 groups of 70 families, 16 orders, 6 classes, 94 genera, and 1 unidentified. The dominant groups were Tetramorium, Onychiurus, Hypogastrura, and Sminthurinus. Compared to CK, the number of fungivorous group of ground-dwelling arthropods were significantly decreased due to severe deforestation disturbance, and they were significantly more in June than August (P<0.05). The number of omnivorous group was also decreased in severe deforestation plots (P<0.05), and there was no significant difference between June and August (P>0.05). The data analysis showed that the number of macro ground-dwelling arthropods and the groups of meso- and micro-sized arthropods were significantly decreased under harvesting stress (P<0.05), which was significantly affected by sampling time (P<0.05). The Shannon-Wiener index(H'), Pielou index(Js) of macro arthropods in A and B were significantly higher than that in CK (P<0.05), and the H', Js of meso and micro arthropods in June were significantly higher than August (P<0.05). The Jaccard index analysis indicated that the community of A was most similar to B, and there was a low similarity between B and CK. Besides, the Petraitis niche overlap index of ground-dwelling arthropods was increased on account of deforestation, indicating that the utilization of resources by ground-dwelling arthropods had become abundant, but there was no significant difference (P>0.05). Principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) based on Bray-Curtis similarity coefficient showed that harvesting caused apparent differentiation of ground-dwelling arthropods community composition, and the community composition of soil arthropods community in logged area had high similarity, and that greatly differed from natural secondary area, indicating that the variation of ground-dwelling arthropods community between deforestation and natural secondary forest could be persisted for a long time. Partial redundancy analysis (pRDA) suggested that the community was mainly affected by the thickness of litter, ground temperature, and humidity.Conclusion: The composition and diversity of ground-dwelling arthropods community are affected by deforestation. Compared to the natural secondary forests (CK), the groups of ground-dwelling arthropods are significantly decreased with the increase of harvesting years, and the indexes of H', Js are both significantly increased. The niche breadth of partial common group has changed due to harvesting stress, and the variation of niche overlap index of partial group is considerable, but the common niche overlap index is still low. The composition of ground-dwelling arthropods community in logged area greatly differs from natural secondary area, and there is no significant difference of soil arthropod communities diversity between the two logged areas, indicating that the effect of logging on soil arthropod communities is long standing. The ground-dwelling arthropods community is mainly affected by litter thickness, ground temperature, and humidity. © 2020, Editorial Department of Scientia Silvae Sinicae. All right reserved.
