Objective  The aims were to understand the characteristics of soil fauna community structure composition, distribution and diversities in different altitudes under Picea schrenkiana in the Western Tianshan Mountains, which will provide soil zoological basis for local forest resource ecosystem health assessment, land use management and sustainable utilization of resources.

  Method  The soil fauna under P. schrenkiana at different altitudes (1414 m, plot-Ⅰ; 1595 m, plot-Ⅱ; 1724 m, plot-Ⅲ and 1868 m, plot-Ⅳ) were selected as the research object. One way ANOVA and least significant difference (LSD) were used to compare the differences between different data groups of soil macro-fauna communities at different altitudinal plots under P. schrenkiana, and redundancy analysis was used to analyze the relationship between the species important values of soil fauna community and environmental variables.

  Result  The results showed that a total of 427 macro-fauna were captured, belonging to 23 families, 16 orders (suborders), 7 classes, 3 phyla. The vertical distribution characteristics of four plots showed that the average density of soil macro-fauna in plot-Ⅱ had obvious surface aggregation characteristics in July, and showed a decreasing trend with the depth of the soil layer, while there was no obvious distribution in other plots. The diversity index, evenness index, dominance index and richness index of soil macro-fauna were different at different altitude plots. The diversity index, evenness index and richness index of soil macro-fauna in plot-Ⅰ were the highest among four plots. Among the four functional groups (herbivorous, saprophytic, predatory and omnivorous), the proportion of the individual density of omnivorous macro-fauna to the total individual density of the four functional groups in each plot was the lowest and the individual density of the other feeding habits macrofauna accounted for more than 90% of the total individual density. Moreover, soil environmental factors had a certain impact on the ecological distribution of soil macro-fauna, in which total potassium and nitrate nitrogen had a higher impact on the diversity and distribution of soil macro-fauna.

  Conclusion  There were rich species of soil macro-fauna communities at the lower altitudinal plots under P. schrenkiana, and the effects of soil organic matter, total nitrogen, available phosphorus and pH on the macro-fauna community were little.