Community forestry is an important form of forests and provides resources to over a half billion people in developing countries. They also play a significant part in mitigating the CO2 levels by sequestering a significant amount of carbon in the soil as well as biomass. The present paper assessed floristic diversity and vegetation structure in three different community forests of southwest Haryana which is a part of tropical dry deciduous forests. The vegetation sampling and data analysis were done following standard procedures. A total of 76 plant species belonging to 37 families in the form of 11 trees, 13 species of shrubs, 46 species of herbs, and 6 species of climbers are documented from all three sites. Poaceae was the most specious family in three sites. The highest tree diversity was recorded in Bhera forest followed by Daya and Dhanger. Regarding understory, the forest of Daya has a greater diversity than Bhera and Dhanger forests. Salavadora oleoides was the dominant tree species in Daya site and Dhanger site while in Bhera the dominant tree species was Ailanthus excelsa. The incidence of rampant livestock grazing and other anthropogenic disturbances were visible in all three sites which are primarily responsible for the degradation of these already fragmented village community forests.
The functional diversity is an essential concept in the field of ecology. It refers to the relative abundance, range, and value of the functional traits present in a given community or ecosystem. Plant functional traits (leaf traits, stem traits, root traits, etc.) create a link between an ecosystem processes and plant physiology and thus offer a powerful means to study the global change on vegetation dynamics and ecosystem processes. When plant species grown in different environments, their physiological and functional traits get modifed due to changes in site-specific conditions. In the present study, leaf functional traits (leaf size-LS, specific leaf areaSLA, leaf dry matter content-LDMC, leaf nitrogen content-LNC, leaf phosphorus content-LPC and leaf nitrogen to phosphorus ratio-N:P) of twelve dominant understorey species (6 shrubs and 6 herbs) were examined in the Pine forest of Morni Hills range of lower Shivaliks, Haryana, India. During the study, the maximum value of leaf size was obtained for Murraya koenigii and Cynoglossum zeylanicum, while the maximum value of LDMC was obtained for Toxicodendron parviflorum and Dicliptera chinensis among shrubs and herbs respectively. Other than this, highest value of SLA, LPC and LNC were calculated for Parthenium hysterophorus among shrubs and Oxalis corniculata among herbs. The calculated values were also found to be significantly correlated among the selected plant species. The SLA was found to be negatively correlated with, LDMC and LPC whereas positively correlated with LNC and N:P. The present study represents a step forward in the direction of functional ecology performed in the forest ecosystems of Haryana. This study is essential for predicting the patterns of community assembly as well as for describing species contributions to ecosystem processes.
Morni Hills of Panchkula district, Haryana harbor floristically important tropical dry deciduous forests and are quite enriched with the phytodiversity of medicinally important plant species. But these forests are under huge pressure due to anthropogenic activities facilitating the establishment and spread of invasive plant species. So, the present study was conducted in the forests of Morni Hills to understand the ecology of invasive alien plant species growing there. During the study, the area was colonized by many invasive alien plant species, such as Ageratum conyzoides L., A. haustonianum Mill., Chromolaena odorata (L.) R.M. King & H. Rob., Lantana camara L., etc. In terms of longevity, the annual growth form dominated over the perennial. The family Asteraceae was dominant with 11 species, followed by Malvaceae and others. The biological spectrum showed that the dominant life form was therophytes followed by phanerophytes and others, indicating vegetation disturbance while during flowering phenology assessment, maximum plant species were found to be flowering throughout the year. Using the data of flowering (presence or absence), a hierarchical cluster analysis was carried out and a heatmap was prepared. The diversity of invasive plants was calculated along an altitudinal gradient and was found to be changing along with rising altitude in a hump-shaped pattern. The invasive alien plant species cause severe threats to the forest ecosystems. Hence, by policy planning and adopting appropriate management strategies in the forests of Morni Hills, the growth of invasive alien plant species should be controlled to retain the natural ecology of the area.
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