Community characteristics of different types of grassland in the Loess Plateau

Abstract： Based on climatevegetation characteristics, enclosed and grazed grassland within 3 different grassland types which were forest grassland, typical grassland and desert steppe were selected for community characteristics analysis. The results showed that, coverage, average height, individual number and species number in desert steppe were significantly lower than that of the other two types of grassland (P0.05). Individual number and average height in forest grassland were significantly higher than that of typical grassland, however, coverage and species number in the latter were superior to the former. Community biomass showed significant difference among three grasslands types, and ranged as typical grasslandforest grasslanddesert steppe (P0.05). For species diversity, rich index and evenness index, diversity index of desert steppe are obviously lower than that of the other two grassland types; In addition, enclosure has improved plant community structure in desert steppe to a certain extent; for typical grasslands and desert steppe, enclosure improved coverage and average height but not statistics significance.