Variation in Species Composition, Structural Diversity, and Regeneration Along Disturbances in Tropical Dry Forest of Northern India

Abstract

Understanding disturbances is crucial for preventing forest degradation and resolving vegetation loss which remain to be a major concern. The present study was to evaluate the vegetation dynamics of different disturbed forest stands, based on cumulative disturbance index score in Vindhyan highlands, India. Our findings demonstrated that the mean tree density was greater in least disturbed (56.24±1.44 ha–1) than in highly disturbed (53.28±2.67 ha–1) and moderately disturbed (50.27±0.94 ha–1) forest stands. Shannon, Simpson, Evenness, Margalef, and β-diversity indices differed significantly amongst the three disturbed stands. The regeneration potential of tree species was found to be good (35.08%), fair (16.42%), and poor to no regeneration (48.5%) across the three stands, in which Diospyros melanoxylon, Syzygium heyneanum, and Holarrhena antidysenterica were shown to have strong regeneration capacity. Principal component analysis revealed that the first component (pc1) explained 45.3% variance, while the second component (pc2) elucidated 20.1% variance in both disturbances and life-form wise distribution with a cumulative score of 65.4%. Our findings would be helpful to understand how different disturbance–regeneration combinations influence the successful regeneration of tree seedlings as well as how variations in compositional diversity will impact the vegetation dynamics and restoration of plant community in dry tropics.