Abstract:Wanglang Nature Reserve is one of the important protected regions for Giant Panda in Sichuan Province, China. However, this nature reserve is located in the area susceptible to earthquake. In 1976, two shallow earthquakes, 7.2 and 6.7 respectively, sequentially took place in this region. And also in this region, another severe earthquake (8.0) have just happened in August, 2008. The earthquakes caused a variety of influences to the local society and environment, including serious landslides and severe damages to forest vegetation. These damages have lead to serious loss of habitats for Giant Pandas, thus the restoration of forest vegetation is key for the protection of Giant Pandas. However, the recovery of vegetations from earthquake disturbance has seldom been examined in this region. In the present study, we investigated the species composition and diversity for communities that restored naturally from different disturbances during the 1976′s earthquakes. Our results showed that: the community recovered from intensive earthquake disturbance (Community E1) was characterized by the lack of tree layer, and the shrub and herb layers were dominated by heliophilous and pioneer species. The species composition of tree layer in the slightly disturbed forest community (Community E2) was similar to that of the primary forest (Community F), except that pioneer species were observed in Community E2. The community E2 and F had no significant differences in species composition for shrub and herb layers. The numbers of family, genera and species in Community E1 were significant lower than that of Community E2 and F, and there were no significant difference between Community E2 and Community F. The differences in species composition and diversity among these communities were caused by different disturbance intensity of the earthquake.