Abstract: Prof. Tchen-Ngo Liou is one of the founders of China's botany, geobotany, and forest ecology. Theory of dynamic geobotany, established by Prof. Liou, can track back from his doctoral work in Alps in France, and was developed based on his long-term field works in northeast, southeast, north, northeast parts of China, India, North Korea and other regions. In the short course on dynamics geobotany in 1962, he gave a series of lectures which formed a synthesized system. The key elements of this theory are the comprehensive review and critical thinking on climax theory of vegetation science and community succession. Prof. Liou has applied this theory into the establishment of artificial vegetation, the improvement of natural vegetation, forest harvesting and regeneration, and the prevent and control of desertification in China. Here, we gave a short summary about this theory, and discussed its potential influence on important topics in vegetation ecology and biodiversity science, including mountain biodiversity, natural forest conservation, forest management, global change, and vegetation classification.

Key words: vegetation ecology, biogeography, the history of botany, the history of ecology, succession, community dynamics