Phytosociological Studies of Tree Species Biodiversity in Sabarkantha District, Gujarat

Abstract

The present work aimed to study the “Phytosociological Studies of Tree Species in Sabarkantha District, Gujarat” was conducted in the rural area 14 sites under Sabarkantha district village during the period of January to May 2022 have been presented and discussed in this chapter. Several field trips of duration 2 to 3 days were made at regular intervals to various part of Sabarkantha district, Gujarat. The study was done to assess the tree diversity ad species richness of the rural areas. A grand total 2085 tree presenting 55 species and 27 families were identified from the total area. Fabaceae was the dominant family. Each sampled trees was evaluated in the field in terms of species, species identification was done by on the basis of local and regional flora. All tree > 10 cm girth at breast height (dbh, 1.37m from the ground) were measured. The Shannon-Wiener index value increases with biodiversity. The higher the value of H, the higher the diversity of species in a particular community. The lower the value of H, the lower the diversity. The overall values for Shannon-Weiner index ranged between 0.99 and 1.16. Sites Chitariya and Kanadar have higher Shannon-Weiner index values whereas lower values have been recorded for sites Balisana and Chotasan. The values recorded in this index characterize the relative distribution of species in different sites. The value of Margalef index of species richness for the sites 1 to 14 varied between 5.78 and 8.61. Sites Nadri and Mahor had higher values, 8.61 and 8.32 respectively, while sites Balisana and Sitvada recorded relatively lower values, 5.78 and 6.39. The greater Margalef index of species richness values were proportional to the number of species found at each site.