Abstract:Disturbance of ecosystem is ubiquitous in the world, which would primarily affect plant communities. The variations of plant vegetation and spatial distribution were investigated in the areas of four typical disturbances, which had been under natural restoration for 22 years in the karst area in the northwest of Guangxi while the climax plant community was utilized as control. The slope scale and disturbance theory was used to study plant diversity in whole area and selected plots. It is clear that the disturbances had resulted in severe loss of plant species, only 241 species of vascular plant that belong to 91 families and 206 genera survived in the disturbed areas, it was only 26.6% of that in natural conservation area. The consequent succession of plant vegetation types were sparse grass of rocky desertification, grass, shrub, liana-shrub, deciduous broad-leaved forest, and mixed segment of evergreen and deciduous broad-leaved forest. The height, coverage, biomass and species diversity of plants decreased sharply with slope elevating and the plant density appeared with normal distribution. Compared with the natural conservation area all criteria of plant vegetation in disturbed areas were much worse. Furthermore, different types of disturbances showed various affections on natural vegetative restoration, among them, tillage after whole slope burned caused the worst impact where rocky desertification was the consequence, followed by depasturing after whole slope burned. While cutting was selective disturbance, the vegetative restoration in the area with combination of cutting, depasturing and slope foot burning was relatively fast, however, it was even better in the area with combination of cutting and slope foot burning. Based on our studies, four strategies for vegetative recovery considering both natural and artificial approaches were established, which were suitable for the karst area in the northwest of Guangxi.