AbstractIn order to evaluate the process of ecological restoration in Dongting Lake region, we surveyed the community structure and diversity of soil animals in October 2005. A total of 8,484 individuals, belonging to five phyla and 11 classes, were obtained from three typical habitat types, i.e., wetland restored from farm-land, farmland, and original wetland. Twenty-six species were obtained from wetland restored from farmland, of which Nematode and Acarina accounted for 66.97%, while 28 species were collected from farmland, of which Nematode and Araneae occupied 61.79%. However, only 13 species were found in the original wet-land, of which Gastropoda was the absolutely dominant group, accounting for 79.89%. The results analyzed using diversity indices (H′, E, C, D, C_j) indicated that: (1) Complexity index (C_j ) is manifested better than H' in representing the complexity and the diversity of animal communities; (2) Community diversity index (H′), had a closer relationship with evenness index (E) (P<0.05); (3) Wetland restored from farmland and the farmland were richer in soil animal taxa than the original wetland (P<0.01). In terms of soil animal individu-als, there were far more in the farmland than in the original wetland (P<0.01), whereas no significant differ-ence (P>0.05) was found between the wetland restored from farmland and in the original wetland. The results indicated that the ecological restoration process in Dongting Lake region was fairly slow and inefficient.