Rainforests present vertically contrasting microhabitat conditions, potentially influencing community assembly of forest fauna. Water-filled tree holes present an ideal model to test the vertical stratification of community assembly, as they are found at various heights of trees and provide important microhabitats for aquatic metazoans with various trophic groups. Naturally occurring tree holes are, however, highly variable in terms of their history, habitat size, and other habitat conditions. To standardize habitat conditions, we used plastic containers with sterilized water and leaf litter to simulate naturally occurring tree holes. Before implementing a full-scale experiment, we first tested whether the artificial habitat containers provided habitats suitable for aquatic metazoans commonly found in natural tree holes. We set the artificial containers in the understorey of monsoonal tropical forest of Xishuangbanna and left for three months. We found similar assemblages and the same trophic groups (namely saprophages and predators) in natural and artificial habitats. In addition, assemblage composition was more similar among the samples of artificial habitat containers than those of natural tree holes, reflecting the standardized habitat conditions of artificial containers. In this presentation, we verified the use of artificial habitat containers and present the preliminary results of the full-scale experiment.