Abstract: This paper studied the effects of alpine meadow degradation in the source region of Yangtze and Yellow Rivers on the clonal growth characteristics of typical stolon plant Lagotis brachystachya. The results showed that on degraded alpine meadow, the stolon number and branching intensity of L. brachystachya increased, and the genet and ramet were lower but their roots were longer than those on the non-degraded alpine meadow. No significant difference was observed in genet leaf number, but the ramet leaf number on degraded alpine meadow was significantly more than that on non-degraded alpine meadow. The stolon length, diameter, and leaf number of L. brachystachya were larger on non-degraded than on degraded alpine meadow, and the energy allocatgion of L. brachystachya for clonal reproduction was more on non-degraded than on degraded alpine meadow. The dry mass proportion of genet was less on non-degraded alpine meadow than on degraded alpine meadow, while that of ramet and stolon was in adverse. All of these were the responses of L. brachystachya to the variations of habitat caused by alpine meadow degradation, and the most reasonable status of this plant for its resources utilization and habitat adaptation.

Key words: Scale, Spatial pattern, Semivariogram