IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/envsyd/v32y2012i4d10.1007_s10669-012-9414-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Composition, species diversity, and biomass of the herbaceous community in dry tropical forest of northern India in relation to soil moisture and light intensity

Author

Listed:
  • R. Sagar

    (Banaras Hindu University)

  • A. Pandey

    (Banaras Hindu University)

  • J. S. Singh

    (Banaras Hindu University)

Abstract

Herb layer contributes substantially to the species diversity of forests and responds relatively quickly to changes in the environment. The objectives of the present study were to understand the relationships among tree canopy cover, soil moisture, light intensity, herbaceous diversity and biomass in a dry tropical forest of India. For this, 20 locations equally distributed in four sites were selected. Four quadrats, each 1 × 1 m in size, were randomly placed for sampling at each location. For each quadrat, tree canopy cover, incident light, soil moisture, herbaceous diversity, and biomass were determined. Results indicated that the selected locations differed in terms of tree canopy cover, soil moisture, light intensity, herbaceous diversity, and biomass. Principal component analysis (PCA), using importance value indices of the component species yielded four groups corresponding to the four communities. PCA axes were related to the tree canopy cover, light intensity, and soil moisture and suggested that these variables had a profound effect on the organization and determination of herbaceous floristic composition and diversity. Positive relationships of tree canopy cover with soil moisture, herbaceous diversity and biomass, and those of soil moisture with herbaceous diversity and biomass suggested that the tree canopies facilitated the herbaceous communities by modifying environmental conditions that ultimately improved the diversity and production. Further, the study showed a linear relationship of herbaceous diversity with biomass, indicating the importance of species diversity for generating primary production in forest herbs.

Suggested Citation

  • R. Sagar & A. Pandey & J. S. Singh, 2012. "Composition, species diversity, and biomass of the herbaceous community in dry tropical forest of northern India in relation to soil moisture and light intensity," Environment Systems and Decisions, Springer, vol. 32(4), pages 485-493, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:envsyd:v:32:y:2012:i:4:d:10.1007_s10669-012-9414-5
    DOI: 10.1007/s10669-012-9414-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10669-012-9414-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10669-012-9414-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rahul Bhadouria & Pratap Srivastava & Rishikesh Singh & Sachchidanand Tripathi & Hema Singh & A. S. Raghubanshi, 2017. "Tree seedling establishment in dry tropics: an urgent need of interaction studies," Environment Systems and Decisions, Springer, vol. 37(1), pages 88-100, March.
    2. Sangsan Phumsathan & Kunanon Daonurai & Ekaphan Kraichak & Sarawood Sungkaew & Atchara Teerawatananon & Nantachai Pongpattananurak, 2022. "Effects of Fire on Diversity and Aboveground Biomass of Understory Communities in Seasonally Dry Tropical Forest in Western Thailand," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-17, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:envsyd:v:32:y:2012:i:4:d:10.1007_s10669-012-9414-5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.