Soil macrofauna of two successional evergreen cloud forest stages from the Cerro Huitepec nature reserve, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, México

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"The soil macrofauna composition was studied in two successionalevergreen cloud forest stages. One of them had an intensiveforestal usage 17 years ago; and it has a canopy height 5cm DBH. The other one was anon managed area, with a canopy of 30-35m and densities rangingfrom 1600 to 1800 trees >5cm DBH. The Chilopoda,Oligochaeta and Diplopoda groups constituted 70% of the totalmacrofauna from the two environments. The Endogeic Oligochaetawas the most abundant group in both types of forest. Oligochaetawere 54% of total decomposers in the mature forest and theirdensity was significantly greater than the immature forest. TheOligochaeta density decrease was related with a lower canopyclosure, increase in soil temperature and decreased level of soilhumidity. This one-year sampling suggests that there are few negativeimpacts on the soil macrofauna associated with forest use forcharcoal production 17 years ago."