In this study， four typical patches under the conditions of shoaly land and sloping land， including bare patches， short-term restoration patches， long-term restoration patches and healthy alpine meadow， were selected. Through plant quadrat survey， the changes of community characteristics in different types of patches during natural restoration and succession were analyzed， and their correlation with soil factors was discussed. The differences of plant community characteristics and key soil limiting factors in different types of patches were revealed. The results showed that with the restoration succession， the plant diversity of shoaly land and sloping land increased significantly， and the functional group coverage and aboveground biomass were significantly different. The quantitative characteristics， diversity， coverage of functional groups （except Fabaceae） and aboveground biomass of plant communities in shoaly land were higher than those in sloping land. Plant community indexes were positively correlated with soil water content， temperature， conductivity， organic carbon， total nitrogen， total phosphorus， nitrate nitrogen and ammonium nitrogen， and negatively correlated with pH value. Organic carbon， total phosphorus， total nitrogen and ammonium nitrogen were the key limiting factors of plant community characteristics in shoaly land， and pH， ammonium nitrogen and organic carbon were the key limiting factors of plant community characteristics in sloping land. In short， the soil conditions of the patchily degraded alpine meadow had been improved and restored， which in turn promoted the positive succession of plant communities.

Site condition  /  Patchy degradation  /  Alpine meadows  /  Restoration succession  /  Plant community characteristics  /  Soil factors