[Insect community structure and its dynamics in Chinese prickly ash plantations at different altitudes in Yunnan...

With community character indices and principal component analysis, this paper studied the variation of insect community composition and structure in Chinese prickly ash plantations at four altitudes in Yunnan Province, and analyzed the temporal patterns of the variation and its affecting factors. The results showed that with the increase of altitude, the species diversity, abundance and evenness of the community decreased gradually, while the population number had a certain increase. Such a variation was more obvious with time. The factor dominating the variation was the gradual change of the species and individuals numbers of natural enemy sub-community to those of pest sub-community.