Population, habitat characteristic, and modelling of Endangered Orchid, Paphiopedilum javanicum in Mt. Lawu, Java, Indonesia

Abstract

Abstract. Romadlon MA, Azzhara F, Nugroho GD, Pitoyo A. 2021. Population, habitat characteristic, and modelling of Endangered Orchid, Paphiopedilum javanicum in Mt. Lawu, Java, Indonesia. Biodiversitas 22: 1996-2004. Paphiopedilum javanicum (Reinw. ex Blume) Pfitzer or Java Paphiopedilum is an endangered orchid categorized as appendix I in CITES. In its natural habitat, forest fire, habitat fragmentation, and extreme poaching are considerably the prominent threats for the species. The study aims to assess the population distribution, the habitat characteristics and model the suitable habitat of P. javanicum in Mt Lawu, Java, Indonesia using Maxent (Maximum Entropy) modelling. Eighteen subpopulations of P. javanicum spread across the region with a total number of 103 individuals. The majority of the individuals are in the generative phase (93.81%) and the rest are in the vegetative phase (6.19%). In Mt Lawu, P. javanicum can be found at an elevation of 1,231-1,825 m asl. in a deep shady forest floor with a thick litter and canopy cover between 0-77.4%. The soil has pH between 7-7.1 with 21.7%-36.7% of moisture. The air temperature ranging between 21.8?-29.7?C, with humidity of 61%-78.5%. Based on the Maxent test, annual mean temperature, vegetation cover, type of land use, and elevation are the most influencing factor of P. javanicum distribution in Mt Lawu. The model identifies 6814.75 ha areas in Mt Lawu that are suitable for the species distribution. Lawu Purba, the biggest suitable area for P. javanicum habitat in the southern part of the mountain holds the remaining natural forests in the region. The result is expected to provide recommendations for determining priority areas in the conservation efforts for this threatened orchid.

Orchids of Mount Ungaran (Indonesia) compiled from a decade of data collections between 2010 and 2021

“…This endangered orchid has a green herbaceous leaf with many dark spots on the abaxial side. The main feature of Paphiopedilum is its pouch-like lip on the flower (Romadlon et al 2021). While the diagnostic characters of P. javanicum are the presence of mottled leaves, with darker green spots superimposed over a light green background; the dorsal sepal is ovate, acute, green with white margins, longitudinally striped dark brown; petals long-oblong, held nearly horizontal but sometimes dropping, greenish finely spotted reddish-brown in the lower two-thirds, white or pink in the apical third; and the dull lip brownish-green (Comber 1990;Hendriyani et al 2019) The second sub-family in this study is Orchidoideae, a group of orchids that grow as terrestrial with erect inflorescences.…”

Ecological niche modeling to find potential habitats of Vanda thwaitesii, a notified endangered orchid of Western Ghats, India

“…These models establish relationships between occurrences of species and biophysical and environmental conditions in the study area thus predicting suitable habitat for survival and existence of a species. This technique was successfully applied to find potential distribution and identify environmental niches for several plant species including orchids Vanda wightii (Decruse 2014), V. bicolor (Deb et al 2017), Paphiopedilum javanicum (Romadlon et al 2021), and Habenaria suaveolens (Jalal & Singh 2017). Based on the current understanding and the requirement of devising conservation action, the present study is framed to understand the habitat suitability of the species in localities other than that described earlier and the reported localities in Western Ghats region of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka states in India.…”

Crepidium ridleyi (J.J.Sm.) Szlach., a threatened endemic terrestrial orchid of Java: A Maxent modeling to predict the current and future potential distribution

“…Global warming has caused a significant habitat loss of the black vanilla orchid (Nigritella nigra s.l.) [12], predict the dynamic of suitable habitat for European terrestrial orchids [13], and predict the suitable distribution of Paphiopedilum javanicum in Mount Lawu [14]. However, no study has yet been conducted for Crepidium ridleyi.…”