Table 2.

Characteristics of plant communities in three deserts of the Alxa Plateau, China. The data are the average value of different diversity index (mean ± SD).

	Number of Plots	H′	D	S	E
Badain Jaran Desert	101	0.71 ± 0.52	0.36 ± 0.24	4.41 ± 3.84	0.5 ± 0.29
Tengger Desert	56	0.83 ± 0.6	0.4 ± 0.27	6.41 ± 4.67	0.47 ± 0.28
Ulan Buh Desert	17	0.85 ± 0.61	0.4 ± 0.25	6.41 ± 7.1	0.51 ± 0.26
Alxa Deserts	174	0.76 ± 0.56	0.38 ± 0.25	5.25 ± 4.59	0.49 ± 0.28

Notes: E = Pielou evenness index; S = Species richness indexes; H′ = Shannon–Wiener index; D = Simpson index.