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The dry and cold Tibetan Plateau is, by its nature, sensitive to desertification, and now human impacts and overexploitation makes things worse. One of the most important things involved in combating desertification is to stabilize mobile sandy land and facilitate revegetation. A study was conducted on shifting sand dunes of Tibetan Plateau to investigate the relationships among sand control, vegetation restoration and diversity dynamics of seed plant species. It was found that a positive correlation lay between sand stabilizing shrubs (Caragana korshinskii and Artemisia ordosica) and Leymus secalinus, a species of dominant and perennial grass in well-restored vegetation, but a negative correlation occurred between those shrubs and Agriophyllum arenarium indicator of shifting dunes. Secondly, sand stabilization facilitated revegetation, and total cover and cover of L. secalinus rose continuously from the beginning of restoration, but diversity indices showed a complex tendency. Based on these results, it was reasoned that on alpine shifting dunes of desertified regions, continual sand drifting caused by gales was the limiting factor for plant to survival. If sand barriers were established, sand drifting would be effectively controlled, then many native plant species could colonize shifting dunes gradually, so the process of revegetation was facilitated. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.