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Authors
Affiliations
1 Forest Ecology and Environment Division, Forest Research Institute, Dehradun 248 006, IN
2 Department of Botany, Government Degree College, Kathua 184 104, IN
Source
Current Science, Vol 106, No 2 (2014), Pagination: 277-287
Abstract
The present study examines species recovery and change in community composition four decades after the management plan completely constrained all silvi-cultural activities in Doon Valley (India) moist deciduous sal forests (Shorea robusta). These forests experienced intensive commercial logging for an extended period (> 100 years). To discontinue disinte-gration and improve the diversity and regeneration, these were declared protective and consequently all silvicultural activities were abandoned. For this, spe-cies richness and regeneration were studied in the con-text of overstorey structure, employing nested quadrat method. Out of 130 species reported in the earliest-most study from these forests, only 68 species were recorded here. Change in community composition has taken place with Mallotus philippensis becoming do-minant in one community; this association is new for these forests. Effect of overstorey structure was noti-ceable, highest species richness and diversity were in-creasing with a decrease in tree density and basal area. These forests showed impaired regeneration progression; for all the groups there was a wide gap between the seedlings and saplings conversion to ad-vance stages. Prospects of recovery are fair as several tree species were reported in juvenile stages with ade-quate density. Results demonstrated that conversion of forests having a long history of exploitation to pro-tected forest is initially good, but for successful recov-ery, after a restitution time, it is desirable to emulate intermediate disturbance by selective harvesting of old and malformed trees. This will initiate gap-phase regeneration and channelize resources to lower dia-meter class trees to develop.
Keywords
Diversity, Overstorey, Protected Forest, Regeneration, Shorea robusta.
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