DIVERSITY AND DISTRIBUTION OF HIGH-MOUNTAIN MEADOWS ACROSS ELEVATION GRADIENT IN WUTAI MTS. (NORTH CHINA) POLISH JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY

38°30’–39°15’N, conserves the typical high-mountain meadows in North China. Eighty one plots (quadrates 2 m × 2 m) in 11 tran-sects separated by 100 meters in altitude along an elevation gradient (2 000–3 058 m a.s.l.) were established. Species composition of plants, their abundance, coverage and height in each plot were measured and recorded. The envi-ronmental variable like slope, slope orientation, soil type, air temperature and humidity (yearly average values) were assessed. The multivari-ate analysis methods, TWINSPAN for classi-fication, and DCA and CCA for ordination, were used to analyze the relationships between meadow communities and environmental vari-ables. The results showed that there are eight types of mountain meadow vegetation in the reserve. The distribution of meadow communi-ties is related to elevation, slope, slope orienta-tion, and soil-water conditions. The changes of species diversity (H ’ = 1.5–2.5) in communi-ties are mainly related to elevation gradient, and also related to community coverage, slope and slope orientation. KEY WORDS: mountain meadows, classifi-cation, ordination, species diversity, biodiversity conservation Mountain vegetation has become a sig-nificant focus in studies of ecology and biodiversity conservation for a long perio