Abstract: Biodiversity is one of important indices that can evaluate the ecological environment in scenic spots. The transects and the samples were established as follows: the Great White Tower was taken as the sampling center in the Wutai Mountains, and eight transects were set up in the east, west, south, north, northeast, northwest, southeast and southwest directions respectively, and then some samples were sampled in interval of the actual 100 m distance in each transect. So a total of 8 transects and 136 samples were taken. The process of calculation and analysis was as follows: firstly, TwoWay Indicator Species Analysis (TWINSPAN) divided 136 samples into 9 kinds of vegetation landscape area；secondly, the biodiversity of different vegetation landscape areas was calculated by six indices from the tree layer, the shrub layer, the herb layer and the whole vegetation layer. As for plant species emerged in different vegetation landscape areas, their proportion was counted based on the types of families and genera and the flora characteristics, respectively. Based on the Raunkiaer[JP8]’s[JP] lifeform system and the adaptability for plant to water condition, the lifeform spectrums and the ecologyform spectrums were also counted in the different vegetation landscape areas, respectively. At last, based on the datum for the ecological characteristics of species in nine vegetation landscape areas above, the pattern of plant diversity under tourism disturbance was studied with Detrended Correspondence Analysis (DCA) in the Wutai Mountains. The results were as follows: (1) There were three distributing patterns in the DCA ordination figure, and different vegetation landscape areas had their own rules on both geographical factors and species diversity. Firstly, Area Ⅲ, Area Ⅳ and Area Ⅶ where shrub and herb dominated, were located on the left of the DCA ordination figure from the below to the above. Secondly, AreaⅠ, Area Ⅱ, Area Ⅵ and Area Ⅴ where tree, shrub and herb dominated, were located on the middle of the DCA ordination figure from the below to the above. Thirdly, Area Ⅸ where only tree grew, were located on the right of the DCA ordination figure. (2) There was very significant between the first axes of DCA and the slope position, whose correlation coefficient was 0.859. There was significant between the second axes of DCA and the elevation, whose correlation coefficient was 0.768. In addition, the correlation between tourism impact index and the first and the second axes of DCA was also more, whose coefficients were 0.589 and 0.422, respectively. These results indicated that the slope position, elevation and tourism impact index had important effects on the pattern of plant diversity. Nowadays, the study on tourism disturbance and plant diversity was not indepth, most of all, about tourism management based on vegetation factor. In the article, based on all kinds of ecological characteristics of plant species, the pattern of plant diversity under tourism disturbance was discerned by DCA, which was the most innovation in theory. The results help to the ecological management for the Wutai Mountains in practice.

Key words: Wutai Mountains, tourism disturbance, vegetation landscapes areas, plant diversity, pattern