Abstract: The National Range Resources Monitoring Station in Yanchi county of Ningxia was used for an investigation on the community structure of ground arthropods, vegetation and soil properties, and on the response of ground arthropods to exclosure of desert steppe in semi-arid regions. There were obvious effects of exclosure on ground vegetation and soil properties, especially in terms of plant density, vegetation height and coverage, which were all significantly (P<0.05) higher under exclosure than non-exclosure. Totally, there were 26 groups and 28 families of 7 orders captured; the faunal group that came up in CK and exclosure at the same time was Blaps (Carabidae) for the dominant group, together with 13 common groups. Also, there was an active response of ground arthropods to exclosure, with higher density, group richness and diversity of arthropod community on exclosure grassland than on non-exclosure grassland, but the differences were not significant (P>0.05). It is suggested that short-term exclosure (five years) had different ecological effects on ground vegetation and arthropods in desert steppe. From correlation analysis, there was a negative correlation of group richness and Shannon index with soil bulk density (P<0.05), but positive for Simpson index with soil bulk density (P<0.05). The soil bulk density was the main factor for the difference of arthropod community structure under exclosure compared with non-exclosure. In addition, different response models were shown for each arthropod group to the selection of habitats between exclosure and non-exclosure.