In this paper, soil microbial community properties of five vegetation patterns were measured by bacterial, microbial biomass carbon and metabolic diversity (BIOLOG) assays to evaluate the effects of different forest restoration patterns on soil microbial community. The results showed that among five sampling sites, soil microbial biomass carbon and bacterial amount were the highest under natural secondary forest, while those in CK were the least. In BIOLOG assays, the average well colour development (AWCD) and the richness and diversity indices indicated the differences of microbial metabolic diversity. The variation tendency of the indices was the same as that of microbial biomass and bacterial amount. It is suggested that under natural secondary forest, soil microbial community had a stronger ability of utilizing carbon source and a greater functional diversity than that in plantations and CK. The metabolic diversity of microbial communities in 0-20 and 20-40 cm soil layers showed a fairly good correlation with root biomass (r = 0.933, P < 0.05; r = 0.925, P < 0.05). In a word, soil microbial biomass, bacterial amount and metabolic diversity patterns were the highest under natural secondary forest, and natural restoration should be more propitious to improve the structure and function of soil microbial community.