Abstract: Vegetation-climate interaction is an old topic,but it becomes the most fundamental and vigorous researches for global change study at present.The principles,metyods,applications,advantages and weakness of the classification indexes of single factor or multi-factors assembled simply such as Koppen,Box indexes,and the indexes synthetically based on the concept of potential evapotranspiration such as Penman, Thornthwaite,Holdridge,Budyko,Kira indexes etc.,were discussed, The multitudinous schemes of vegetation-climate classification based upon the indexes in cluding Holdridge,Uvardy,Matthews,Olson,Bailey,Woodward, Prentice and Box schemes werealso discussed. These indexes and programs of vegetation-climate classification can establish some good bases for the present vegetation-climate interaction studies,global change and its impact on terrestrial ecosystems,and prediction of potential vegetation under increasing atmospheric CO₂.

Key words: Qinzhou Bay, phytoplankton, species composition, community diversity.