Abstract: In order to probe into the range of distribution of the shrub species in the ecotone between the loess hilly area and bedrock area in the Zhongyang county of west Shanxi province, the niche breadth (Levins, Shannon-weiner index), niche overlap (pianka, simple Morisita) and Detrended Correspondence Analysis (DCA) of 29 species were calculated in this paper. The result of niche characteristic and DCA analyse were also compared. The results showed that the niche breadth of some species were bigger than that of other species, including Cotoneaster acutifolius, Spiraea pubesceus, Rosa xanthina, Viburnum mongolica etc. These species were widely distributed in the study area and had better eco-climate adaptability than other species which could be used to silviculture in the future. Most of the species couples had less niche overlap index value, while only few of the species couples had great niche overlap index value. As the Pianka niche overlap index, among the 406 species couples, there were 116 couples which niche overlap value were zero. The niche overlap value of 276 couples were between 0 and 0.5 which was 67.98% of all the couples, and the he niche overlap value of 14 couples were between 0.5 and 1 which was 3.45% of all the couples. The classification of 29 shrub species based on the method of DCA was also rational and actual. The DCA figure of shrub species reflected the spatial pattern of all the species and the ecological adaptability of species. The axis 1 of DCA reflected the environmental moisture gradient where the species located. The species which enjoyed moisture environment lied on shade slope and the left of axis 1. The species which could bear dry environment lied on the right of the figure. Diagonal line of the two-dimensional ordination diagram of species DCA reflects the spatial pattern of species. The species which lied on the bottom right of DCA figure numerously distributed in the loess hill area, while the species lied on the top left of the figure mainly distributed in the bedrock area. Some interested phenomena was founded. The species which had narrow niche breadth mainly lied on the edge area of the DCA figure, otherwise the species which had broad niche breath most lied on the central area. But not all the couples of species which had high niche overlap were close to each other. The probable reason was the niche overlap reflected the relationship between any two species, while result of DCA analyses mainly explained the integrative relationship among all the species. But through the contrast between niche characteristic and DCA ordination, the better results were obtained.