Nowadays, the influence of biomass plantations in polluted soils as a remediation strategy has mainly been considered in the view of phytoextraction, but little of soil biodiversity. Our objective was to assess the impact of Miscanthus x giganteus plantations on soil macroinvertebrates in trace metal contaminated soils. We hypothesized (1) that miscanthus plantations host more numerous and diverse communities than comparable annual crop soils and (2) that functional traits permit to decrypt the biological strategies underlying invertebrate community response. We selected fields on sandy and loamy-clay soils contaminated either by urban wastewater or atmospheric deposition, respectively. Our results showed that in comparison to annual cropping systems, miscanthus plantation enhanced higher densities and diversity of soil invertebrates but not of ground-dwelling invertebrates. Miscanthus cropping led to an increase in the proportion of resident, detritivores and rhizophages species, and a trend was revealed for larger invertebrates. Thus, the use of a trait-based approach provided fine opportunities to elucidate invertebrate responses to land use changes in contaminated areas. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.