Objective: The aim of this study was to explore variation characteristics of soil microbial community diversity in purple soils at different re-vegetation stages on sloping-land in Hengyang, Hunan Province, South-central China. Method: By using the spatial series to replace time series, four typical vegetation types, bare land, herbaceous and shrubby communities, as well as arboreal community, were selected to study the soil microbial community diversity by using the Biolog-ECO micro-plate technique. The four communities in purple soils on slop...