Elevational distribution of bird assemblages in the Western Carpathians is mainly driven by floristics, climate and productivity

Aims Many past practices in afforestation and forest management were instrumented for addressing the issues of tree species selection, planting regimes and development of overstory structure, but neglected understory vegetation. Our objective was to determine the controlling factors of herb-layer plant distribution and the importance of topography in determining local-scale spatial patterns of herbaceous plants. Methods The occurrence and distribution of herb-layer plants were investigated on 26 plots in the Xiaoshegou catchment of Lingkong Mountain, Shanxi Province, China. Community types were classified using two-way indicator species analysis (TWINSPAN) and the relationship between the distribution and abundance of herb-layer species and environmental gradients was analyzed using the canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) ordination method. Forward selection and Monte Carlo permutation test were used to select the factors important in determining the herb-layer plant distribution. Partial CCA (PCCA) was also performed to partition the variance that was explainable by categorical habitat and biotic factors studied. Important findings The 26 survey plots were classified into six groups characterized by the dominant overstory tree species. The results of CCA ordination reflected the relationship between herb-layer community structure and selective environmental variables. The classification of 26 plots in CCA ordination was consistent with the result of TWINSPAN. Forward selection and Monte Carlo test suggested that stand type, soil nutrients and slope position were the most important factors determining understory plant distribution. PCCA revealed that habitat and biotic factors together explained 42.9% of variance in the distribution of understory herbaceous plants. Habitat factors alone explained 31.8% of the variance, biotic factors alone explained 7.8% of the variance and interactionbetween habitat and biotic factors explained 3.2% of the variance. The partitioning of variance using the PCCA helped with identifying the important habitat factors regulating understory herbaceous plant distribution at the study site. However, the fact that more than half of the variance was unaccounted for by the factors studied suggests that other factors we did not measure could also play a role in determining the occurrence and distribution of herbaceous plants on the forest floor, e.g., human activities and random events. Our study demonstrates the importance of both topography and overstory tree species in determining the occurrence and distribution of herb-layer plant species in temperate forest of mountainous areas.

Soil particle-size distribution (PSD) is one of the most fundamental physical attributes of soil due to its strong influence on other soil properties related to water movement, productivity, and soil erosion. Characterizing variation of PSD in soils is an important issue in environmental research. Using ordination methods to characterize particle size distributions (PSDs) on a small-scale is very limited. In this paper, we selected the Cele River Basin on the north slope of the Middle Kunlun Mountains as a study area and investigated vegetation and soil conditions from 1960 to 4070 m a.s.l. Soil particle-size distributions obtained by laser diffractometry were used as a source data matrix. The Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA) ordination was applied to analyse the variation characteristics of PSDs and the relationships between PSDs and environmental factors. Moreover, single fractal dimensions were calculated to support the interpretation of the ordination results. Our results indicate that a differentiation of 16 particle fractions can sufficiently characterize the PSDs in CCA biplots. Elevation has the greatest effect on PSDs: the soil fine fractions increase gradually with increasing elevation. In addition, soil pH, water and total salt content are significantly correlated with PSDs. CCA ordination biplots show that soil and vegetation patterns correspond with one another, indicating a tight link between soil PSDs and plant communities on a small scale in arid regions. The results of fractal dimensions analysis were rather similar to CCA ordination results, but they yielded less detailed information about PSDs. Our study shows that ordination methods can be beneficially used in research into PSDs and, combined with fractal measures, can provide comprehensive information about PSDs.

Patterns of plant diversity and plant–environmental relationships across three riparian corridors

The integration between vegetation data, human disturbance factors, and geo-spatial data (Digital Elevation Model (DEM) and image data) is a particular challenge for vegetation mapping in mountainous areas. The present study aimed to incorporate the relationships between species distribution (or vegetation spatial distribution pattern) and topography and human disturbance factors with remote sensing data, to improve the accuracy of mountain vegetation maps. Two different mountainous areas located in Lancang (Mekong) watershed served as study sites. An Artificial Neural Network (ANN) architecture classification was used as image classification protocol. In addition, canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) ordination was applied to address the relationships between topography and human disturbance factors with the spatial distribution of vegetation patterns. We used ordinary kriging at unobserved locations to predict the CCA scores. The CCA ordination results showed that the vegetation spatial distribution patterns are strongly affected by topography and human disturbance factors. The overall accuracy of vegetation classification was significantly improved by incorporating DEM or four CCA axes as additional channels in both the northern and southern study areas. However, there was no significant difference between using DEM or four CCA axes as extra channels in the northern steep mountainous areas because of a strong redundancy between CCA axes and DEM data. In the southern lower mountainous areas, the accuracy was significantly higher using four CCA axes as extra bands, compared to using DEM as an extra band. In the southern study area, the variance of vegetation data explained by human disturbance factors was larger than the variance explained by topographic attributes.

Effects of prairie restoration on arthropod diversity was investigated at Gabis Arboretum, Valparaiso, Indiana. A total of 35,408 arthropods belonging to 13 taxa in the restored prairie (RP1 and RP2), old field (OF), and monoculture stand of Phalaris arundinacea (reed canary grass – RCG) sites, were captured, counted, and compared. The enhanced plant species diversity in the restored prairies did not appear to promote the diversity of arthropod taxa. However, the restoration led to a more balanced composition of arthropod functional groups and thus elevated the diversity of functional groups. The arthropod assemblages in the three sites diverged clearly according to my canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) ordination. Pollinator abundance was greatest at RP and least at RCG site, positively correlating with greater forb diversity, and suggesting greater potential for nectar feeding and pollination potential at RP sites. Herbivore abundance was greatest at the RP sites, positively correlating with increasing plant species diversity. Predator abundance was significantly greater at the RCG site compared to the OF and RP sites; it was positively correlated with greater C3 grass cover, a characteristic of the structurally homogenous RCG site, and negatively correlated with increasing plant diversity and forb cover, a characteristic of the diverse and more structurally complex RP sites. Given the apparent non-random distribution of arthropods among the field types, my results suggest plant species composition has a significant effect on arthropod assembly. The monoculture grass stand was found to have a predator dominated arthropod community supported by a small, diverse herbivore community. It is concluded that the prairie restoration has resulted in alteration of arthropod communities supporting greater pollinator and herbivore abundance and a more balanced ratio of herbivores to predators due, in part, to increased plant structural diversity.

A considerable proportion of Iran’s territory is covered with arid and semi-arid rangelands and mismanagement and overexploitation of those rangelands have resulted in serious ecological degradation. Thus, the need is pressing to examine the present species composition and the relationships with environmental factors for providing the needed scientific references to species conservation and ecological rehabilitation efforts. The aims of this study were to examine the species composition and to delineate the most important factors influencing the distributions of plant species and groups in the northern rangelands of Isfahan Province (Iran) using two-way indicator species analysis (TWINSPAN), detrended correspondence analysis (DCA), principal component analysis (PCA), and canonical correspondence analysis (CCA). Field investigations were conducted in the growing season of 2014 using stratified random method in 22 homogeneous sampling units. In total, 75 plant species belonging to 52 genera and 19 families were identified. The most important families were Asteraceae and Papilionaceae, the most important genera were Astragalus, Cousinia, and Acanthophyllum, and the most important species were Artemisia aucheri and Artemisia sieberi. Plant species were classified into 10 groups using TWINSPAN. DCA was used to estimate the magnitude of changes in species composition along the first two ordination axes to provide gradient length estimations for PCA and CCA ordinations. The first three PCA axes and the first three CCA axes demonstrated similar cumulative percentage of variance, indicating that the environmental factors (selected by PCA) used in CCA ordination were acceptable for explaining the species composition and the distributions. CCA ordination showed that the first axis was closely related to elevation, slope, surface bare soil cover, surface litter cover, gravel proportion, organic matter, total nitrogen, CaCO3 content, and grazing intensity and that the second axis was closely related to sand proportion, silt proportion, clay proportion, and saturation percentage. Among these factors, elevation was the most effective factor to separate the plant groups and grazing was the major cause of rangeland degradation.

In response to uncertainty in remotely sensed land cover products, there is continuing research on accuracy assessment and analysis. Given reference sample data, accuracy indicators are commonly estimated based on error matrices, from which areal extents of different cover types are also estimated. There are merits to explore the ways utilities of land cover products may be further enhanced beyond map face values and conventional area estimation. This paper presents an integrative method (CCAErrMat) for uncertainty characterization and utility enhancement. This works through reference-map cover type co-occurrence analyses based on error matrices localized in canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) ordination space rather than in geographic space to overcome the sparsity of reference sample data. The aforementioned co-occurrence analyses facilitate quantification of accuracy indicators, identification of correctly classified and perfectly misclassified pixels, and prediction of reference class probabilities, all at individual pixels. Moreover, these predicted reference class probabilities are used as auxiliary variables to formulate model-assisted area estimation, further enhancing map utilities. Extensions to CCAErrMat are also investigated as a way to bypass the pre-computing of map class occurrence pattern indices as candidate explanatory variables for CCAErrMat, leading to two variant methods: CCACCAErrMat and CNNCCAErrMat. A case study based in Wuhan municipality, central China was undertaken to compare the proposed method against alternative methods, including CCA-separate and CNN-separate. The advantages of CCAErrMat and CCACCAErrMat were confirmed. The proposed method is recommendable for characterizing uncertainty and enhancing utilities in land cover maps by analyzing locally constrained error matrices. The method is also cost-effective in terms of reference sample data, as requirements for them are similar to those for conventional accuracy assessments.

Ohud mountain is one of the main important historic sites in the Arab Peninsula, and it is distinguishable over the rest of the mountains in the region. No extensive floristic survey has been carried out on Ohud mountain because of the rugged topography of this mountain. The current study investigates the floristic diversity and the correspondence of environmental factors of the phytogeographical distribution of plants, based on the floristic analysis of the present region. The research question is about the relationships between the species diversity and the human impacts of populated area at lowlands around Ohud mountain. A total of 59 species belonging to 56 genera and 28 families were recorded. Asteraceae had the highest contribution, about 12% of the total plant species. The analysis of the life forms demonstrated the prevalence of therophytes (68%) followed by chamaephytes (24%), indicating the adaptation of these life forms to hyperarid conditions. The chorological analysis indicated the predominance of the bi-regional taxa over the other phytochoria. Most of the recorded plant species belong to Saharo-Arabian and Sudano-Zambezian (24%) phytochoria. TWINSPAN analysis was performed to detect the indicator species of different vegetation groups and confirmed by detrended correspondence analysis (DCA or DECORANA). It is concluded that species richness and diversity revealed clear variation along the mountain and among the studied sites. Plant species diversity and richness were more pronounced in the intermediate portion of the elevation gradients across the mountain, with a decrease in the high altitudinal belts. The decrease was also recorded at the lower altitudes, where human impacts clearly affected vegetation; leading to a decrease in alpha diversity. In addition, the beta diversity among moderately highlands and lowlands was considerably high indicating the heterogeneous species composition among the studied sites along mountain elevations. The general pattern of vegetation groups distribution is controlled by a number of environmental factors; such as latitude, longitude, elevation, organic matter and some anions and cations. A Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA) ordination revealed that the vegetation structure has a strong association with the latitude of the mountain followed by organic matter and Magnesium. It is recommended that the populated area should be subjected to restoration of mountain ecosystem that might be degraded by human activities.

Correspondence analysis, when used to understand relationships in a table of counts (for example, abundance data in ecology), has been criticized as being too sensitive to objects (for example, species) that occur with very low frequency or in very few samples. Here I show that this criticism is generally unfounded. This is demonstrated in several data sets by calculating the actual contributions of rare objects to the results of correspondence analysis and canonical correspondence analysis, both to the determination of the ordination axes and to the chi-square distance. It is a fact that rare objects are often positioned as outliers in correspondence analysis ordinations, which gives the impression that they are highly influential, but their low weight offsets their distant positions and reduces their effect on the results. An alternative scaling of the correspondence analysis solution, the contribution biplot, is proposed as a way of displaying the results in order to avoid the problem of outlying and low contributing rare objects. In this new scaling of the biplot (or triplot in canonical correspondence analysis), species points have coordinates that are directly related to their contributions to the solution.

Spatial and temporal heterogeneity of recent diatom stratigraphy were assessed for a small (23 ha) dimictic lake in Northern Sweden (Kassjon). Varves are confined to water depths > 10 m. Six freeze cores were taken along a transect covering a range of water depths (3–12 m) and both varved and non-varved sediments. Core profiles were compared for dry mass accumulation, loss-on-ignition (LOI), and diatom relative frequency stratigraphy and accumulation rate. Excluding the 3.2 m water depth, non-varved core, all parameters showed good repeatability between cores, apart from diatom accumulation rates which were more variable. The 3.2 m core was atypical and had lower LOI values, low planktonic diatom percentages and high values of benthic taxa that were not abundant in the deep-water sediments. Detrended Correspondence Analysis (DCA) and Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA) ordinations were compared; both methods clearly differentiated the shallow water core, and showed the general similar ecological trends of the deeper-water cores. CCA axes constrained by “environmental” (i. e. core location) data resulted in slightly lower eigenvalues than that obtained by Correspondence Analysis (CA), but the axes were significantly non-random. A Partial-CCA of the four varved cores alone (with effects of sediment depth, i.e. age, partialled out), indicated that there was no significant difference between their diatom assemblages.

PDF HTML阅读 XML下载 导出引用 引用提醒 被遗忘的城市“生境”:重庆市墙体自生植物调查分析 DOI: 10.5846/stxb201804130848 作者: 作者单位: 作者简介: 通讯作者: 中图分类号: 基金项目: 国家重点研发计划课题（2017YFC0505705）；国家自然科学基金项目（51408584） Forgotten urban habitats: Analysis of spontaneous vegetation on the urban walls of Chongqing City Author: Affiliation: Fund Project: 摘要 | 图/表 | 访问统计 | 参考文献 | 相似文献 | 引证文献 | 资源附件 | 文章评论 摘要:被称为"钢筋水泥森林"的现代城市存在大量的墙体，包括建筑外墙、独立围墙、挡土墙等类型。通常情况下，这些完全硬质化的界面不会被认作为生境或栖息地。以典型山城重庆市为例，探索城区范围内墙体成为城市生境的可能性。于2017年9-11月对重庆主城区共120块墙，包含359个4×1 m小样方，调查墙面上自生植物的物种、覆盖度等信息；记录墙体4类特征共22个因子作为生境影响因素；并采用方差分解和典范对应分析（CCA）排序法研究影响因素与自生植物组成和分布的关系。结果表明：（1）市区墙境自生植物丰富，共记录到70科149属193种，以菊科植物种类最丰富，其次是禾本科和荨麻科。优势种包括蜈蚣草（蕨类）、井栏边草（蕨类）、构树幼苗（乔木）、贯众（蕨类）和黄葛树幼苗（乔木）。相比平面环境的自生植物以旱生为主，墙体上喜阴湿的蕨类植物占明显优势，反映出墙体作为生境的独特性，可以作为城市生态空间的有效补充。（2）墙体4类特征共解释自生植物组成与分布变化的14.4%，植物传播、定植与构建是一个综合复杂的过程，受各种随机因素影响；此外，本文所选因素也未考虑更大尺度的周边景观等因素。所有因子中，墙体高度、藤蔓覆盖度和墙体遮阴率是影响植物变化的主要因子，且与CCA排序第1轴相关性最强。这些因子均与墙体自身湿度有关，表明水分在决定墙面植物组成与分布起主要作用，植物在墙面沿水分呈梯度分布。讨论了本研究对现代城镇绿化的启示，从自然做功的角度提升城市生态系统服务，为城市生态设计与低成本管理提供科学依据。 Abstract:Cities are known as "concrete forests," and they have substantial walls of many types, including buildings, free-standing (boundary), and retaining (those used for reinforcing slopes or to confine river channels). Generally, these completely concrete walls are not considered as habitats. Using a typical mountainous city, Chongqing, as the case study, we aimed at exploring the possibility that urban walls can act as habitats in cities. From September to November 2017, we surveyed 120 walls, across 359 sampling quadrates, to obtain spontaneous vegetation data and associated wall characteristics. The effects of wall characteristics on the variation of spontaneous vegetation was calculated using variance partitioning and canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) ordination method. Vascular plants totaled 193 species in 149 genera from 70 families. The Compositae family had the greatest number of species and was followed by Gramineae and Urticaceae. The dominant species included Pteris vittata, Pteris multifida, seedlings of Broussonetia papyrifera, Cyrtomium fortune, and seedlings of Ficus virens. They occurred in more than 40% of all quadrates. The wall vegetation showed a diverse range of plant life-forms (i.e., woody, fern, and vine). Compared to xerophytes that dominate planar environments, more fern species inhabited the walls. This finding is consistent with that of other studies. This reflects the uniqueness of walls as habitats, and urban walls can act as a valuable complement to urban ecological spaces. The explanatory power of all four wall characteristics was low (14.4%). The spontaneous species assemblage was a complex process, and it was influenced by environmental stochasticity. Additionally, the unexplained portion may come from the influence of the large-scale landscape context. Among all the variables, wall height, vine coverage, and wall shade were the most important factors that influenced vegetation composition and distribution, and they had the highest correlation with the first constrained axis of the CCA ordination. All variables were relevant to wall humidity. This indicates that moisture plays a decisive role in structuring vegetation on urban walls. Lastly, we discussed the implications of this study on greening and landscaping contemporary cities. Urban biodiversity improvement can be done by "allowing nature to work". Our study also provides scientific support for urban ecological design and low-cost management. 参考文献 相似文献 引证文献

Lee, J.-S.; Son, D.-H.; Lee, S.-H.; Myeong, H.-H.; Cho, J.-S.; Lee, J.-C.; Lee, J.-Y.; Park, C.-S., and Kim, J.-W., 2020. Canonical correspondence analysis ordinations and competitor, stress tolerator, and ruderal strategies of coastal dune plants in South Korea. Journal of Coastal Research, 36(3), 528–535. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.The distribution of plant communities in the sand dunes of the SW coasts of South Korea was studied, along with environmental factors and plant traits, by canonical correspondence analysis (CCA). The competitor, stress tolerator, and ruderal (CSR) ecological strategies were also evaluated. The coastal sand dune plants were classified into two plant trait groups in the CCA biplot diagram. First, vegetation was correlated with leaf dry weight, canopy height, specific leaf area, leaf dry matter content, and lateral spread. Second, it was correlated with the flowering period and flowering start. Coastal sand dune plants were classified into three soil factor groups in axes 1 and 2 of the CCA biplot diagram. First, the vegetation was correlated with total nitrogen (T-N), K+, Silt, Mg2+, Na+, and clay contents. Second, it was correlated with Ca2+. Third, it was correlated with the sand contents. To elucidate the relative significance of competition, stress, and disturbance in the distribution process of plant communities, the CSR distribution model was adopted. Many coastal plants (12 species) showed competitor-ruderal/competitor-stress-tolerant-ruderal strategies: Artemisia fukudo, Atriplex gmelinii, Carex kobomugi, Calystegia soldanella, Digitaria ciliaris, Linaria japonica, Messerschmidia sibirica, Oenothera bieenis, Salicornia europaea, Salsola komarovii, Suaeda glauca, and Suaeda maritima. The four species with stress-tolerant-competitor/competitor-stress-tolerant-ruderal strategies were Carex pumila, Imperata cylindrica var. koenigii, Limonium tetragonum, and Zoysia sinica. Conyza canadensis, Ischaemum anthephoroides, Phragmites communis, and Vitex rotundifolia displayed competitor/stress-tolerant-competitor, competitor-ruderal, stress-tolerant-competitor, and C/SC strategies, respectively. The differences in distribution and restoration patterns of the CCA diagrams and CSR triangles may be attributable to different adaptions of plant traits or soil factors.

Classification and ordination of the main plant communities of the Eastern Hajar Mountains, Oman

Macroinvertebrates, discharge and 16 chemical variables were monitored over a 14-year period in four small streams (catchment area <15 km2) in the Cairngorm mountains, Scotland. Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA) was used to assess relationships between invertebrates and environmental conditions on the day of sampling, average conditions over the preceding 1, 2 and 3-month periods and indices of hydrological and hydrochemical variation over preceding monthly intervals. CCA detected subtle inter-catchment differences in invertebrate community structure, with catchments separated along axes representing streamwater calcium, alkalinity and total organic carbon concentrations. Invertebrate communities varied seasonally, with spring, summer and autumn samples separated along CCA axes representing temperature, orthosilicate and discharge. Hydrochemically, spring was the most variable season, characterised by increased frequency of both high and low flow events and acid, snowmelt episodes. In two of the streams, invertebrate community structure varied more in spring than in other seasons. CCA ordinations using indices of hydrological and hydrochemical variation over preceding time periods were more successful (increased eigenvalues) at explaining temporal variation in invertebrate community structure than those using conditions on the day of sampling or average conditions over preceding time periods. For one of the catchments, 40% of the seasonal and between-year variation over the 14-year period could be explained by the frequency of high and low flow events, maximum and minimum water temperatures and acid episodes in the two months prior to the invertebrate samples being collected. The single most important flow parameter (longest CCA arrow) was the frequency of high flow events greater than three times the median discharge. No significant trends in invertebrate community composition were found in any of the streams over the 14-year period so, despite the apparent importance of hydrological and hydrochemical variation, communities appeared stable over the long-term.

Terrestrial herbs are an important element in tropical forests; however, there is a lack of research on their diversity patterns and how they respond to different forest use intensities. Studying the richness and distributional patterns of this group along elevational gradients is important in order to understand the general processes that influence this distribution. Previous investigations have been done on elevational gradients and the effect of land use intensity on plant diversity, however, relevant research on herbaceous angiosperms is still scarce compared to other groups of vascular plants, such as trees. In order to bridge this gap, I studied herbaceous angiosperm distributions along gradients of elevation and disturbance. Therefore, the study of an elevational gradient proposed in this work provides an opportunity to analyze distributional patterns of herbs in a tropical area with contrasting environmental conditions. It is important to notice that this is the first study of its class on Mexico. First, we analyzed species richness and floristic composition of herbaceous angiosperms at eight elevational sites (Chapter two). We compared those patterns with respect to land use intensities at Cofre de Perote, central Veracruz, Mexico. We established an elevational transect (40 to 3,520 m) where we recorded the occurrence of terrestrial angiosperm herbs within a total of 135 plots of 20 x 20 m. We compared species richness and floristic composition between the different elevational belts and degrees of forest disturbance. We recorded a total of 264 herb species, 31 endemic to Mexico and three classified as threatened. The total number of species represents 5.7% of species of the Veracruz´ herbaceous angiosperm flora. The elevational belts with highest species richness were 2,500 m (76) and 1,500 m (52). In most cases, secondary forests showed the highest species richness along the elevational gradient, whereas old-growth forests had fewer species. The observed species richness, including endemic elements, highlights the importance of plant conservation in areas threatened by land use changes. Additionally, we suggest that environmental heterogeneity formed by mature, disturbed and secondary forests is acceptable (and unavoidable) and can even increase species richness. Second, we described the influence of elevation and forest use intensity on alpha, beta, and gamma diversity along gradients of elevation (50 m to 3500 m) and human forest use intensity (Chapter three). We analyzed species richness and floristic composition in six vegetation belts at different elevations and in different habitats. We found some general elevational trends, such as the increase in α- diversity and βb-diversity and a decline in βw-diversity. Also, γ-diversity follows a hump-shaped pattern with a peak between 2500 m and 3000 m and a decrease at the extremes of the elevational gradient. There was no effect of forest use intensity on α-diversity, only β-diversity increased depending on the change of habitat with the highest values when old-growth forest are transformed into secondary forests. Therefore, a loss of a specific forest area is compensated by the occurrence of a similar assemblage at other areas of the same location. The observed high β-diversity, including endemic elements, suggests that a mix of different habitats is needed for reaching high γ-richness of terrestrial herbs. Third, we described the deforestation and fragmentation patterns of the study area during three different time periods (1993, 2000 and 2014; Chapter four). We quantified the net change in forest area and the loss of original forest area. Our results showed a reduction in the area of the original vegetation by about 57%. The annual net forest change rate for the first period (1993-2000) was -0.44%; and increased significantly to 0.11% for the second period (2000-2014). The old-growth forests of Central Veracruz have suffered high rates of land use change throughout the last twenty years with a reduction of this process during the last decade. In the first period, forest patches increased in irregularity, isolation and size with a reduction in the dimension of the fragments that represented the destruction of natural vegetation, whereas the second period experienced a slightly recovering of forest cover (0.11%). This chapter provides a thorough analysis of the forest transformations in Central Veracruz that will increase the consciousness of stakeholders for proper planning and management to maintain biological integrity of the area. Finally, I synthesize the principal findings of this thesis and highlight the implications for conservation. Also, I suggest potential topics be studied in the future with the data obtained, related with remaining forest and alpha and beta diversity patterns of endemic herbs (Chapter five).