A Correlation between the Microclimate Forest to the Diversity of Orchids at Climate of the Lowland Dipterocarp Forest in Malinau Regency

Abstract

This research evaluated forest microclimate effects on biodiversity, explore relationships among canopy properties, and disentangle their relationship on orchid ephypite diversity in the climax. The presence of orchids data collection carried by census on every tree that is over grown, while the research plots using single plot to the extent of 6 plots, each of the sized of 100 x100 m of lowland dipterocarp forest in Malinau Regency. Overall number of orchids were found in 6 hectares of climax forest could be 3324 clumps or 554 clumps/hectares from 43 species especially of the genus Bulbophyllum (7 genus or 35%). The analysis used a multiple linear regression, while Pearson’s correlation method. was used to find out the correlation between X (climate parameters) and Y (number of orchid) variables. Correlation between the elements of micro-climate with a number of orchids in climax shows a positif and strong correlation between the presence of orchids with average daily humidity (0.99) and the intensity of radiation at each vertical tree stratum (0.95), instead the relationship with temperature showed negative and a weak correlation (-0.51).