Soil microarthropods, through their feeding habit, are widely recognized as responsible for organic matter turnover and energy flow. A species-level approach is essential to reveal fine-scale ecological patterns and spatial organization within their communities. The present research, combining species-level identification with trait-based analysis, investigated the distribution of the main groups of microarthropods such as Oribatida and Collembola according to the resource quality. The research was performed in a temperate beech forest in Southern Italy and the samples were collected in a 20x20 plot along a vertical gradient: fresh litter, fragmented litter, surface mineral soil (depth: 0–5 cm) and deep mineral soil (depth: 5–10 cm). Microarthropods were extracted by Berlese-Tullgren funnels, and Oribatida and Collembola were identified at species level. Body size and metabolic rate were measured individually, whereas the functional traits, such as feeding and reproduction strategies, were assigned based on the literature. Finally, the resource quality was estimated as C/N ratio. The results showed that fungal feeders, representing the 61% of the microarthropod abundance, dominated the deep mineral soil and the litter feeders, representing the 53% of the microarthropod abundance, dominated the fresh litter layer. The metabolic rate decreased along the vertical from 0.013 J h⁻¹ in fresh litter to 0.003 J h⁻¹ in the deep mineral soil. In conclusion, the vertical gradient filtered microarthropod communities based on their feeding strategies rather than selecting them according to taxonomic affiliation, promoting a spatial partitioning of energy sources. Indeed, organic substrates supported fast-living consumers with higher energy demands, whereas law-quality substrates favoured consumers with specialized feeding strategies and conservative life-history strategies.