ASSESSMENT OF PLANT DIVERSITY AND PRIORITIZATION OF COMMUNITIES FOR CONSERVATION IN MORNAULA RESERVE FOREST

Abstract

Assessment of plant diversity of the Reserve Forests of the west Himalaya and prioritization of communities for conservation have not been given much attention. Therefore, the study has been conducted in a biodiversity rich Mornaula Reserve Forest between 1500-2200m to analyse the structure, composition of the forest communities including richness of economically important, native, endemic and rare-endangered species, and prioritize communities for conservation. A total of 123 sites were sampled. For each site, habitat characteristics, altitude and dominant species have been given. From the sampled sites, 289 species (37 trees; 37 shrubs; and 215 herbs) and 31 forest communities have been recorded. The density of trees ranged from 340-2438 Ind ha -1 and TBA from 19.52-234.31 Ind m 2 . The densities of saplings ranged from 340.00-2277.00 Ind ha -1 and seedlings 266.00-1571.00 Ind ha -1 ; shrubs 357-1156 Ind ha -1 and herbs 21.73-431.04 Ind m -2 . The richness of the trees ranged from 3-27, shrubs, 8-36, herbs, 17-145, seedlings, 3-22, and saplings, 2-21. Species diversity for trees ranged from 0.99-2.93, seedlings, 0.86-2.65, saplings, 0.44-2.78, shrubs, 1.94-4.43 and herbs, 1.42-4.66. These recorded values were almost comparable with the studies conducted in sub-tropical, temperate and sub-alpine regions of the west Himalaya. In some cases the values were slightly higher than the reported values. The communities have been prioritized for conservation based on the species richness, nativity, endemism, economically important and rare-endangered species. Among, all the prioritized communities, Rhododendron arboreum community supports maximum species including native, endemic, economically important and rare- endangered species. In view of the high socio-economic and conservation values of the identified communities, monitoring of these communities at least for a period of five years and development of appropriate strategy and action plan for the conservation and management have been suggested.