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Nematode communities were investigated on bare soil, physical soil crusts, algal crusts, and moss crusts in Shapotou in the Tengger Desert, China. The objective of the present study is to examine whether nematode communities develop parallel to the biological crust succession. The abundance of nematodes, the proportion of predators, maturity index, the number of nematode taxa identified, and Shannon index were affected significantly by crust type. Bare soil, physical soil crusts, algal crusts, and moss crusts were also comprised of differing community composition as indicated by PRC analysis. These results indicate that nematode communities develop parallel to crust development during the assisted revegetation of migrating sand dunes. Therefore, nematodes could be an indicator of biological crust development in the Tengger Desert, China.