The low dose effects induced by carbon ions on Chinese hamster V79 cells and murine melanoma B16 cells were investigated in this paper. Both cell lines were divided into four groups for irradiation: (1) control, (2) 0.02 Gy or 0.05 Gy(D1), (3) 1 Gy(D2), (4) D1+D2. The survivors and micronuclei were studied as biological endpoints. The results of group (1) and group (2) showed that there were no obvious differences on micronucleus frequency but there were significant increases when irradiation dose was 0.02Gy on colony formation efficiency. Although low dose ion irradiation could not contribute to DNA damages, it could enhance the colony formation efficiency. In the study of group (3) and (4), when the ion dose was 0.02 Gy, there were evident increases on surviving fraction and decreases on micronuclcus frequency, but there were no statistical changes on these endpoints when the ion dose was 0.05Gy. This meant that high LET radiation could induce the adaptive response of cultured cells, furthermore, in the range of inducing ion dose low dose irradiation was more profitable than high dose one.