Abstract
The present study deals with species diversity, and regeneration of Quercus floribunda Lindl forest lies in moist temperate sites in Nainital of Kumaun Himalaya. Tree, sapling and seedling density was 490-1190, 260-1280 and 100-670 ind.ha-1, respectively. The species diversity of trees and shrubs density ranged from 0.421 to 1.177 and 310 to 1540 ind.ha-1. The regeneration of Q. floribunda was J-shaped in forest site-1 and 2 while I-shaped (no regeneration) was reported for the forest site-3. The regeneration status of species in the studied forest sites indicates the impact of disturbances caused by anthropogenic activities. Thus, the presence of either seedlings or saplings and or also occurrence of new plant species in forest site-1 and site-2 predict the possible change in forest species composition in coming years while there was a very alarming condition in forest site-3 as new recruitments of tree species is evidenced by their absence. Thus, the above findings of Q. floribunda have shown that there is an urgent need to provide judicious inputs of management and conservation for sustaining the oak species in such forest sites of the region. Key words: Quercus floribunda, species diversity, trees, saplings, seedlings, regeneration, moist temperate.
Highlights
Himalaya is one of the biodiversity hot spots in the world but the recent change in biodiversity and climate has been seen in every part of the globe which is caused by disturbances and faulty development activities
The present study tree species density was 490 to 1190 ind ha-1. These values are higher than 760 ind ha-1 reported for natural oak forest (Rawat and Singh, 1988), 349 ind ha-1 for Western Himalaya forest (Saxena and Singh, 1984), 930 indha-1 for Q. floribunda forest (Kumar and Ram, 2005) and 260-780 ind ha-1 for disturbed forest and 460-970 ind ha-1 for protected forests of Nainital catchment (Bargali et al, 2013). but present estimates are on the lower side than 1330 ind.ha-1 reported for Oak and Pine mixed forests(Lodhiyal and Lodhiyal, 2012) and 920-1345 ind ha-1 for natural Oak dominated forest (Lodhiyal et al, 2013)
Density of saplings in this forest site ranged from 260 to 1280 ind ha-1, which was higher than 760 ind ha-1 reported for oak forest (Rawat and Singh, 1988)
Summary
Himalaya is one of the biodiversity hot spots in the world but the recent change in biodiversity and climate has been seen in every part of the globe which is caused by disturbances and faulty development activities. The variation in endemism species along the altitudinal gradient have shown that the changes in species diversity and microclimate of forest site in mountain region, result to the integrated impacts of disturbance, poor conservation, faulty development and lack of appropriate management strategies. In the past, a lot of research works were done by many scientists focusing on their quantitative information but assessing the integrated effects of various factors was still not explored for the region. The various species of oaks are dominated in the forest communities throughout the mountain region of northern India (Stephenson and Saxena, 1984). There are five oak species viz., Quercus leucotrichophora A.
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