Abstract:Community characteristics and soil properties of 5 typical vegetations (i.e. abandoned field, shrubbery, artifical pinus massoninana forest, grass land and secondary pinus massoninana forest) in Chaohu hill region were systematically investigated. The results showed plant species of abandoned field was maximal, followed by artifical pinus massoninana forest and shrubbery, and grassland was the lowest with the average value of 4. Grass land presented the highest total coverage (95%), then followed by secondary pinus massoninana forest, shrubbery and artifical pinus massoninana forest. The highest species diversity index and community evenness index occurred in abandoned field, followed by shrubbery and the last was grass land. Nutrient contents in surface soil of abandoned field were significantly higher than these of others. TOC, TN, TP and AN in surface soil of secondary pinus massoninana forest were higher than these of shrubbery and grass land, which indicated the accumulative process of soil nutrients with the evolution of vegetation. Furthermore, significant positive correlations were identified between species diversity index, community evenness index and soil nutrients, which suggested the vegetation evolution was at successive developing-stage.