The Understory Herbaceous Vegetation at Tropical Mountain Forest of Mount Bawakaraeng, South Sulawesi

Abstract

The structure and diversity of understory herb vegetation were studied at Tropical Mountain Forest of Mount Bawakaraeng, South Sulawesi. The study was conducted at two areas. The first area was natural forest (NF) (Site 1). The second area (Site 2) was dominated by Pteridium aquilinum (L.) Kuhn ferns and Lantana camara shrubs (NP). The value of similarity index between the two sides was 22,15. The mean values of diversity parameters at Site 2 relatively higher compared to those in Site 1. The Dominance Diversity Curve for Site 2 shows curve that longer than that of Site 1. There are 12 species that are found at both sites. At Site 1, the highest mean value of Species Richness (S) and Shannon Wiener Diversity Index (H’) are found in Rather Steep Slope (RSS) and the lowest are in Gentle Slope (GS). In the Site 2 area, the highest mean value of S, H’, Simpson’s Diversity Index (1-D) and Pielou’s Evenness Index (E) are found in Flat Slope (FS) and the lowest is in RSS, whilst the highest value of Simpson’s Dominance Index (D) is in RSS and followed in FS and finally in GS. At Site 1, species with highest important value index (IVI) are varying. The most dominant species at Site 2 is Isachne globosa. The Asteraceae family is the family that has species with highest IVI at Site 1. At Site 2, Poaceae family is the plan family that has the most species with the highest IVI at all slope level.

Species diversity pattern and its drivers of the understory herbaceous plants in a Chinese subtropical forest

“…Elevation was negatively correlated with Pielou's evenness index and total coverage of herbaceous communities, which was different from the conclusion that there was a unimodal relationship between herbaceous plant diversity and elevation in tropical forests (Gómez-Díaz et al, 2017). In addition, there is no significant relationship between slope and herbaceous community diversity, which may be affected by canopy openness and surface soil (Wiharto et al, 2021).…”

“…In tropical and temperate forests, the community structure and diversity of herbaceous plants are affected by temperature (Cicuzza et al, 2013), elevation, slope (Wiharto et al, 2021), soil (Mao et al, 2021), canopy (Ford et al, 2000), and other factors. The results of correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis between the diversity of subtropical herbaceous plants and the main biotic/abiotic factors showed that elevation, concavity, basal tree area, tree diversity, and canopy density had certain effects on the diversity pattern of understory herbaceous plants in the subtropical forest.…”

“…On the one hand, herbaceous plants and woody plants show quite differences in the root system (Cicuzza et al, 2013), leaves, and stature, which may lead to a significant difference in responding to light resources and available nutrition (Siebert, 2002;Ramadhanil et al, 2008), and ultimately present a different diversity pattern. On the other hand, local environmental factors, such as elevation, slope (Wiharto et al, 2021), soil (Beck and Givnish, 2021;Mao et al, 2021), community edge (De Pauw et al, 2021), thinning intensity (Wang et al, 2021), and climate change (Cacciatori et al, 2022), also have been shown to have significant effects on the diversity of understory herbaceous plants. However, the effect of habitat filtration may be different between woody and herbaceous plants.…”