Preliminary Response of Soil Fauna to Simulated N Deposition in Three Typical Subtropical Forests

ABSTRACT A field-scale experiment arranged in a complete randomized block design with three N addition treatments including a control (no addition of N), a low N (5 g m −2 year −1 ), and a medium N (10 g m −2 year −1 ) was performed in each of the three typical forests, a pine ( Pinus massoniana Lamb.) forest (PF), a pine-broadleaf mixed forest (MF) and a mature monsoon evergreen broadleaf forest (MEBF), of the Dinghushan Biosphere Reserve in subtropical China to study the response of soil fauna community to additions of N. Higher NH + 4 and NO − 3 concentrations and a lower soil pH occurred in the medium N treatment of MEBF, whereas the NO − 3 concentration was the lowest in PF after the additions of N. The response of the density, group abundance and diversity index of soil fauna to addition of N varied with the forest type, and all these variables decreased with increasing N under MEBF but the trend was opposite under PF. The N treatments had no significant effects on these variables under MF. Compared with the control plots, the medium N treatment had significant negative effect on soil fauna under MEBF. The group abundance of soil fauna increased significantly with additions of higher N rates under PF. These results suggested that the response of soil fauna to N deposition varied with the forest type and N deposition rate, and soil N status is one of the important factors affecting the response of soil fauna to N deposition.