Despite a huge amount of research, we still don’t know what determines the composition and dynamics of the hidden soil animal community in the belowground. Thus, we can’t predict ecosystem-level consequences of environmental change via changing invertebrate biodiversity and litter decomposition processes. Soil animals live in habitats composed of plant litter, the quality of which depends on trait afterlife effects of the plant community. We still believe in the possibility of linking the soil animal community with the aboveground plant community if we evaluate the plant litter comprehensively by focusing on its role as the habitat for soil animals. We conducted a field incubation experiment using leaf litter of 16 tree species and collected various soil meso and macrofauna extracted by the Tullgren apparatus. To understand both food and habitat qualities of litter for soil animals, we assessed physical traits related to litter size and shape spectrum (SSS) as well as litter traits related to plant economics spectrum (PES). We show how PES and SSS traits of single litter particles affect litter pack traits directly related to soil animal habitat environments and how these traits, especially related to the habitat, determine soil animal community.