The restoration of sandy ecosystems is currently a major focus of research in restoration ecology. In this context, screening of appropriate plant species capable of growth in local environments is an essential step in vegetation restoration programs. The functional traits of plants reflect their survival strategies in different environmental conditions, and the selection of appropriate functional traits can help identify suitable species in an effective manner. Environmental factors both drive changes in plant functional traits and promote community succession. Therefore, exploring the relationship between plant functional traits and the environment in sandy ecosystems can help in screening species that can be used for vegetation restoration, and can provide a theoretical basis for protecting such ecosystem using such species. This study was conducted in Mu Us Sandy Land, and analysed the community succession characteristics and responses to environmental factors in 30 typical flying plots from 1983 to 2015. In addition, the target species in different succession stages were identified and a potential species bank consisting of 161 species of sandy plants and 10 plant functional traits in Mu Us Sandy Land were established. Moreover, the suitable plants in different succession stages in sandy ecosystems under air-seeding restoration were further screened. The results of the study revealed the following: (1) the plant community in Mu Us Sandy Land can be divided into three successive stages; the first stage is the sand-fixing pioneer species community, the second stage is the miscellaneous grass community dominated by psammophytes, and the third stage is the miscellaneous grass community dominated by mesophytes. (2) Redundancy analysis showed that soil factors were the primary environmental driving forces of community succession, in which total nitrogen, total organic carbon, and nitrate nitrogen of soil were the crucial factors affecting community succession. (3) Finally, based on the plant functional traits, 29 species of plants suitable for growth in the sandy land were selected for vegetation restoration. The plants that could be considered to be in the first, second, and third stages of succession were Bassia dasyphylla and Salsola collina, Calamagrostis epigeios and Cleistogenes songorica, and Saussurea amara and Artemisia scoparia, respectively. The results showed that the study of functional traits and environmental characteristics at each succession stage, as well as the rapid selection of candidate species based on functional traits for restoration of degraded ecosystems, can provide references for identifying suitable species for restoration and reconstruction of sandy vegetation in the future.