Floristic status and its conservation in the forests of the north Gujarat region (NGR) Gujarat, India

Abstract

Large areas of species rich forest of North Gujarat Region (NGR) have been cleared up to make ways for agriculture, human habitation, mining and industrial developments that often lead to forest fragmentation. Hence, very systematic and species - oriened conservation efforts are essential to protect the important species and their habitats by patching the fragments. Further, literature review also showed that there has not been any detailed and holistic study to addresses the above said issues. The present study was designed to fill up these lacunae and is an attempt to deliberate the different aspects of plant communities of the forest of NGR. The study was carried out from May 2005 to Jan 2008 and focused on various aspects like floristic inventory, quantification of plants, phenology of select species of trees, regeneration potential of trees and status of threatened plants. The results showed that among the habitas selected for the present study, Open Scrub Forest supported rich diversity of plants than the other three forest types (TTF, DDF and MDF). However, MDF showed the maximum diversity among the forest types due to factors like perisistant moisture on the ground surface and soil quality. Regardless of the habitats, many of the native species have lost their regeneration potential while invaded, non-native species showed tremendous regeneration potential. Hence, the dominance of non-native species viz. Acacia raddiana, and Aristida adscensionis var. adcensionis, Anisomeles indica, Achyranthes aspera var. argentea, Peristrophe paniculata and Cuscuta reflexa were recorded more in numbers. Considerable variation in the phenological parameters viz. leaf initiation, flowering and fruiting activity of selected plants species in each forest type was found in the present study. However, leaf fall showed almost a uniform pattern. Eight globally threatened plants were identified and surveyed in the present study. Habitat degradation due to human pressure (cutting and lopping of trees)