Plant energy functional groups and their coupling relationship with the functional degradation of steppe ecosystem

摘要

Plant functional group ( PFG ) is a combination of various plant species with some common functional characteristics, Utilizing PFG can more efficiently reveal the general features of the natural ecosystem compared to studies of individual plant species( Gitay & Noble,1997 ).In this study, we firstly promoted classify functional groups based on the caloric value of plant, and study their dynamics along degradation gradient in three types of steppe of Xilin River Basin in Inner Mongolia.The objective was to investigate the feasibility of this functional classification method and compared the succession pattern of different functional groups with systematic declining at the ecosystem level.