Altitudinal patterns of plant species diversity on northern and southern Mountain Tai

The vegetation and plant species diversity patterns along the elevation gradient in Mountain Tai were studied based on the investigation data of 14 sampling plots on the northern and southern slope.The results showed that,the species richness was higher on the southern slope than that on the northern slope at the same elevations.The altitudinal pattern of the species richness decreased with the increasing elevation.The species diversity of community and different layers changed differently on both southern and northern slopes. In the situation of low human disturbance,the community species richness had higher values for the tree layers on the northern slope, while diversity indexes were different for the tree layers,the species diversity of tree layer was greater on the southern slope,but the species diversity of shrub and herb layer was obviously greater on the northern slope.Generally speaking,the correlation between species diversity index and elevationa was better on the northern slope than that on the southern slope.