Abstract: Taking more than 3 000 peak forests in Wulingyuan Scenic Area as the object, based on remote sensing image interpretation and field survey data, the 17 indexes including three aspects of natural environment, community structural function and human disturbance were selected to construct the evaluation index system of plant community stability. Analytic hierarchy process and equal-distance method were used to determine the index weight, ArcGIS was used for weighted stacking, and the plant community stability was divided into five grades from high to low, namely Ⅴ, Ⅳ, Ⅲ, Ⅱ andⅠ . Based on this, plant community stability was evaluated and mapped, and the spatial distribution and causes of plant communities with different degrees of stability were analyzed. The results showed the areas occupied by peaks of Ⅴ, Ⅳ, Ⅲ, Ⅱ andⅠ were 14.37 km², 17.16 km², 16.26 km², 13.74 km² and 6.25 km², respectively, accounting for 21.2%, 25.3%, 24.0%, 20.3% and 9.2%. The spatial distribution of plant community stability was high in the east and the south, low in the west and the north; the plant community was relatively stable in Wulingyuan Scenic Area, and nearly one third of the area was still at risk of degradation of the plant community at the top of peaks. Community stability was the result of the combined effects of natural environment and human disturbance. Among the factors that affected the stability of plant communities, the natural environment and human disturbance were stronger than the structural and functional factors of community.

Key words: plant community, stability, analytic hierarchy process, spatial distribution characteristics, Wulingyuan Scenic Area