The structure of tardigrade communities in mosses of Central European oak-hornbeam forests was studied at 10 sites located in the Malé Karpaty Mts and Trnavská pahorkatina hills (SW Slovakia). A total of 3, 050 tardigrade specimens of 21 species and 2 families were gathered from 79 quantitative samples taken from 2000 and 2002. Kruskal-Wallis tests and regression analyses showed no statistically significant influence between the 12 studied environmental variables and the number of Tardigrada specimens or number of species in the samples. A chi-square goodness of fit test suggested that the number of Tardigrada species in samples of moss Hypnum cupressiforme was random within the investigated area. A t-test of tardigrade species diversity resulted in significant differences between study sites. The group of communities with the lowest diversity does not differ mutually. Majority of differences in species diversity were caused by randomly found species. Results of cluster analysis as well as CCA point out that distribution of tardigrades and their colonisation of particular substrata is a random process. Although the results are affected by restricted number of samples, we believe that Tardigrada as passively dispersed organisms are without significant relationship to ecological variables related to their distribution amongst substrata.