Understanding species’ elevational distributions in mountain ecosystems is needed under climate change, but remote biodiverse mountain areas may be poorly documented. National Forest Inventories (NFIs) offer a potential source of data. We used NFI records from Bhutan to ask three questions about elevational richness patterns of Himalayan woody plant species. First, does the mean elevation for all species differ from those species whose entire elevational distribution is recorded in the survey? Second, how does the elevation of maximum richness differ when combining species originating from temperate and tropical regions vs. analyzing them separately? And third, do the highest species turnover rates adjoin elevation zones of maximum species richness? We used 32,198 species records from 1685 forest plots along a 7570 m gradient to map species elevation ranges. Species whose entire range was documented were those whose lowest records are located above 400 m, while bare rock defined all species’ upper limits. We calculated species richness and turnover using 400 m elevation bands. Of 569 species, 79% of temperate and 61% of tropical species’ elevation ranges were fully sampled within the NFI data. Mean elevation of tree and shrub species differed significantly for temperate and tropical species. Maximum combined species richness is from 1300 to 1700 m (277 species), differing significantly from maximum tropical (900–1300 m, 169) and temperate species richness (2500–2900 m, 92). Temperate tree turnover rate was highest in the bands adjoining its maximum species richness (2500–2900 m). But turnover for tropical trees was highest several bands above their maximum species richness, where turnover and decrease in richness interact. Shrub species turnover patterns are similar, but rates were generally higher than for trees. Bhutan’s NFI records show that woody plant species are arrayed on the Himalaya in part according to floristic origins, and that combining temperate- and tropical-originating floras for gradient-based studies such as species richness and turnover obscures actual elevational patterns. In addition, species whose ranges extend below the Himalayan elevation gradient should be accounted for in future studies that correlate climate and environment factors with elevational species richness patterns.
In the design of Reinforced Concrete (RC) building, infill walls are normally assumed as non-structural elements and they are accepted as vertical uniform loads on beams. Therefore, the RC buildings are designed as bare frame structures. However, in reality, infill walls are present in RC buildings, and the seismic performance of the buildings will be different with and without infill walls. In this study, 5 storey RC buildings with 2 bays and 5 bays in X-direction and Y-direction respectively are considered. The infill walls were replaced as equivalent diagonal struts and the non-linear static pushover analysis was performed to evaluate the effects of infill walls on the overall performance of the structures. The lateral strength capacity and performance point of the building were determined for the conventional (bare frame) method and with the presence of infill walls. The study reveals that the effects of infill walls under seismic loads in significant until elastic region in which the initial stiffness and strength of the structures increases, while lateral deformation capacity decreases. It is also observed that there are no significant changes in terms of ultimate lateral strength and roof displacement of the building as compared within presence of infill walls and bare frame.
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