Abstract: Biodiversity investigation on forest community structures were conducted under different gradients of human disturbance in Lantau, Hong Kong. The results show that species diversity of forest community decreases along the disturbance gradient of different intensity, diversity of forest community of natural growing vegetation (hill) > diversity of light disturbed (Ngong Ping) > diversity of heavy disturbed (Tung Chung). The species compositions and dominance also vary with the intensity of human-induced disturbance. Exotic species are introduced into the communities purposedly by human activities, and therefore build up new community structures. The ecolgical impact of exotic species should be investigated from several respects in more details.

Key words: Lantau, human disturbance, community, diversity, exotic species