As a typical type of grassland in Xinjiang,mountain grassland is an important pasture in Xinjiang grass- land. In order to understand the effect of different degrees of disturbance on the quantitative characteristics and species diversity in typical steppe plant communities,grassland with four disturbance levels including non-disturbance,mild disturbance,moderate disturbance and severe disturbance were selected in grazing and non-grazing interaction areas through field investigation and remote sensing image interpretation data. The changes of grassland community under disturbance were analyzed from two aspects of community quantity characteristics and species diversity. The results showed that with the intensification of disturbance,(1) the number of dominant species decreased,and the importance value decreased by 1. 21 times. The number of miscellaneous grass increased,and the importance value increased 59. 70%.(2) The community height,coverage and density were significantly decreasedby 79. 74%,70. 99% and 59. 39%,respectively (P<0. 05).(3) The aboveground biomass of the community first decreased and then in- creased,and there were significant differences among disturbance degrees (P<0. 05). The underground biomass of communities and soil layers tended to be stable after decreasing,and the underground roots mainly concentrated in 0- 10 cm soil layer.(4) Species diversity did not show a consistent change. Species richness index and Simpson index were the highest in severely disturbed grassland. The shannon-Wiener index and Pielou index were the highest in lightly disturbed grassland. The results provided basic data for the degradation control of mountain steppe.