ECOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF SOIL MICROARTHROPODS OF THE STEPPE ZONE OF MONGOLIA.

Territory of Eastern Mongolian steppe characterize by their hilly plane surface that rare with mountains. Total area of the Eastern Mongolia is 300157.0 km2 which is the 19.2 percent of the total territory of Mongolia. Our study area is involves the above mentioned characteristics of the Eastern Mongolian steppe and belong to the Dariganga plane sub region. Samples were collected from different biotopes, such as mountain steppe, meadow, and desert steppe that involve plane area, and hills.However, there are no any specific publications and studies that belong to our study area. Main objective of the study is to determine ecological characteristics of the soil microarthropods in Eastern Mongolian steppe ecosystem. From our investigations we attained the following conclusions: The average density of the Eastern Mongolian steppe soil microarthropods were 6900 and average density of the were Acari: Oribatida7355 ekz/m2 Biodiversity were poor in the biotopes of birch grove meadow, and in sedge grass meadows, similarly, but the biotopes were high by their species richness. Biotope of steppe with sedge, grass, and forbs were rich by their biodiversity. However, the biotope was poor by its species richness. The poorest biotope by the biodiversity and species richness was mountain steppe with grass and forbs. The differences in the species richness and biodiversity are caused by the differences in soil and vegetation cover and by the differences in sample collection time. Comparison among the biotopes shows that the biotopes were similar by 33-47% with each other. This indicates that the biotopes are similar by the time of formation and ecological conditions.