Effect of Different Altitude on Biomass and Rhizomatous Morphological Plasticity of Leymus chinensis

Leymus chinensis was sampled in the two routes of different vegetation types at the five different altitudes(1000m-2000m) in Daqing Mountain region of Inner Mongolia in order to investigate the effect of altitude on its plasticity.The results showed that the plasticity of Leymus chinensis in biomass and rhizome morphological characteristic were significantly in response to altitude.The biaomass of Leymus chinensis,the total biomass of community,the biomass ratio of Leymus chinensis to community and the biomass ratio of rhizome to pogoniasis root increased with the increase of altitude.This means that altitude can change the biomass allocation.The change patterns of the biomass ratio of root to shoot were in a quadratic curve when the altitude increased,which decreased in the former three altitude,then were on the raise in the following ones.In morphological respect of rhizome,the length of ryizome and average internode were also significantly increased when altitude increased,but there wasn't significant difference in ramet distance.