Abstract: To study the major features of the spatio-temporal variation in the diversity of grassland grasshopper in different grassland types in the northern slopes of Qilian Mountains, four grassland types were selected and sweep-net method was used to investigate the richness and relative abundance of grassland grasshoppers from June to October in 2008 and 2009. In total 28 species (or subspecies) belonging to 7 families and 15 genera were collected. Average species richness ranged from 7 to 23 species per grassland type. The species richness was lower in the alpine shrubland, and there were only 7 and 8 species in 2008 and 2009, respectively. The species richness was higher in the alpine grassland in 2008 (16 species) and 2009 (23 species). Species richness of the desert grassland and the alpine meadow was between the two mentioned above, and there were 15 and 15 species in 2008, and 9 and 12 species in 2009, respectively. The results suggest that spatial heterogeneity determined by moisture, thermal resource, vegetation and geographical factors plays an important role in determining community composition, diversity and special distributions of grassland grasshoppers.

Key words: Grassland grasshopper, species diversity, spatial heterogeneity, richness, relative abundance