The state of soil assemblages of selected invertebrate taxa in Grebenje village (municipality Velike Lašče in southern Slovenia) was monitored for one year (February 2016 – February 2017). The population parameters of caught centipedes, symphylans, spiders, pseudoscorpions, ants, beetles, and woodlice were recorded in three different environments: in xerophillic meadow soil, in mulched meadow soil, and in forest soil. At approximately equal time intervals, eight samplings were carried out using a sampling probe based on the quadrat method. Over the course of the sampling period, the assemblage under mulch underwent the most significant change. Compared to the meadow assemblage, higher speciess richness, higher Shannon-Wiener diversity index values and evenness were estimated for the mulch assemblage. A favourable microclimate and additional source of food enabled colonisation of new species and mitigated interspecies competition, so the mulch assemblage became more heterogenous than the meadow community. Renkonen's similarity index showed a gradual decline in similarity between the meadow and the mulch assemblage and relatively higher and more stable similarity between the mulch and the forest assemblage, partially due to migration of forest species into the favourable microenvironment and partially due to the decline of a number of common meadow species (especially ants) under mulch. Furthermore, the trophic structure of the assemblage under mulch changed; compared to the meadow assemblage, it contained a larger ratio of fungivores, detritivors, and omnivores. The mulch has proven to be an effective means of promoting biodiversity and creating favorable microclimate conditions in the soil.
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