Anthropogenic active grassland communities: Floral diversity and biological spectrum analysis in Odisha

Abstract

Grasslands are the largest biome on earth. There is an urgent need to understand the value of species, plant community productivity, species composition and function of the grassland ecosystem. So, the floristic composition and life-form spectrum of ten different grassland communities in the Mayurbhanj district of Odisha was studied from June 2022 to June 2023. The study revealed that the Mayurbhanj district has a unique floristic diversity composition comprising 137 species (55 Grasses and 82 Non-Grasses) belonging to 93 genera and 27 families. Among all the families Poaceae family occupies a greater number of species (i.e. 55 species) followed by Cyperaceae (26 species), Fabaceae (8 species), Asteraceae (7 species), Amaranthaceae (4 species), the species belongs to families Rubiaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Convolvulaceae, Lamiaceae and Malvaceae contribute (3 species), Orobanchaceae, Oxalidaceae, Plantaginaceae, Linderniaceae and Commelinaceae, (2 species), while the remaining 12 families represented only a single species. The species richness and growth form were calculated based on the existence (1)/ absence (0) of a particular species in each study site. The species richness of Saraskana was found to be the highest (42.33%) followed by Baripada (39.41%), Bangiriposi (35.76%), and Betnoti (35.03%). About 28.26% of species richness was estimated in Kuliana and Suliapada. A dendrogram was also prepared based on floristic similarity among study sites. There were 5 life form classes were observed in the study sites, among them Therophytes and Hemicryptophytes showed the highest diversity. The Life-form classes of the study sites were compared with Raunkier's Normal spectrum, and the Phyto spectrum of the present study indicates “Thero-Hemicryptophytic” types of Phyto climate. As a result, therophytic flora was found predominated to the extensively grazed site whereas the Hemicryptophytic flora indicated the moderately grazed and disturbed site. It is estimated that the variations in the species composition and life form in different grassland communities might be due to the Geographical distribution, biotic interference and climatic conditions of that region.