Research Advances of Diversity in Grassland Communities

Biodiversity is one of the important content in researching global climate change,and is currently a hotspot in ecology study in the world.Biodiversity is a complex composed of biology and environment as well as the related various ecological processes.Affected by spatial scale and the complexity of ecosystems,the theoretical and practical studies include mainly 4 domains,i.e.,the genetic diversity,species diversity,ecosystem diversity and landscape diversity.As the community diversity is a domain researched earliest in biodiversity study,its concept and measuring methods are mature,and the research content includes the composition,structure,functions and dynamic change of communities.Currently,the steppe ecosystems are paid more attention to in the studies on biodiversity and ecosystem functions.In this paper,the hotspots in researching the diversity of steppe plant communities are discussed from the aspects of pastoral disturbance,environmental factors,stability of ecosystems,productivity of ecosystems,etc.The relationships between the pastoral factors and the diversity of steppe plant communities,environmental factors and the diversity of steppe plant communities,ecosystem functions and the diversity of steppe plant communities,and ecosystem stability and the diversity of steppe plant communities are also discussed.The application of measuring methods in researching the diversity of steppe plant communities is reviewed,and some existing problems in researching the diversity of steppe plant communities are analyzed.