1. Introduction
The extreme sensitivity of macrofauna to soil conditions makes them potential indicators of soil disturbances [10].
Most approaches to the exploitation of these indicators have focussed on single species [2,6] or on communities of single
taxa; earthworms, Collembola and Nematoda have been the most commonly used groups in that respect [4,5,12]. These
organisms, however, are part of terrestrial communities that comprise several tens of strongly interacting species. It
seems therefore more logical to consider whole macrofauna communities as indicators since they may possess a wider
range of adaptive strategies than a single taxonomic group[7]. This approach has been tested at a polluted site where
a sharp gradient in zinc concentration allowed us to evaluate
the effect of heavy metal pollution on the edaphic community