Abstract:Exclosure plays an important role in grassland management. The effects of exclousure on grassland ecosystems were reviewed from the following aspects such as plant community diversity and productivity, seed bank and soil properties. Grassland community would change toward certain direction after exclosure by eliminating trample, feed intake, dejection of domestic animals. Degraded grassland followed three succession patterns after exclosure, that is mono\|stale\|state model, multi\|stable\|state model and lag model. The plant diversity of the grassland would be changed after exclosure due to population growth and decline, disappearance of some species and immigrant of new species. Three change trends of the degraded grassland community diversity were identified as the theory of “moderate disturbance”, elimination of some species and the slow process of community restoration under specific environment. The effects of exclosure on the recovery of degraded grassland by influencing seed bank were reviewed. The effects of exclosure on soil properties were analyzed. In short, exclosure has different influence on grasslands under different situation. Therefore, we should control the exclosure time scale well to exert its positive effects on recovery of degraded grassland and avoid the negative influences on grassland due to the improper utilization of exclosure measure. We suggest that the summarization and analysis for present research results should be enhanced, the more intensive study should be conducted for the disputed issue, the long term exclosure research programs should be maded, and the exclosure research station should be increased.