Investigation and Study on Vegetation of Qinghai-Tibet Highway

Since the dominant species of original vegetation and the distribution pat terns of the bio-diversities are essential to vegetation recovery and restoration along the Qinghai-Tibet Highway. A vegetation survey was conducted on the Lhasa-Tuotuo River section of the Qinghai-Tibet Highway, and 30 sample points were set to analyze the vegetation community along the Highway. Analysis of vegetation Community along Highway. The results show that there are 18 families, 26 genera, and 32 species of plants in the Qinghai-Tibet Highway Corridor. Compared with the world, China, and Tibet, the plant families belong to 3.26% of the total in the world, 5.341% of the total in China and 8.491% of the total in Tibet, but the species only accounted for 0.542% of the total number of Tibetan plant species. The dominant species of flowering ground cover are Astragalus strictus, Potentilla, etc. the species richness reduced closely with the altitude, and more species in southward than in northward. The variation of vegetation community diversity index is not directly related to elevation, but related to microclimate change along the highway.