Biological spectrum and other structural functional attributes of the vegetation of Kumaun Himalaya

Abstract

Spectra on life form, leaf size, leaf persistence, flowering season, and shade tolerance of trees in different vegetation types occurring within the north-western catchment of the river Gola in Kumaun Himalaya are presented. The flora of Quercus leucotrichophora, Quercus lanuginosa and Quercusfloribunda forests is phanerophytic, that of Pinus roxburghii and mixed forests therophytic. The grassland vegetation is characterized by the largest percentage of hemicryptophytes. The flora of the whole area, is therophytic. The biological spectrum for the entire Kumaun Himalaya is characterized as therohemigeophytic. Among the various altitudinal zones, the tropical has a preponderance of phanerophytes, the temperate and the alpine of hemicryptophytes.The observations on leaf size indicate that with the exception of Pinus roxburghii forest, in all vegetation types, the species with microphylls are greater in number. In this region, the vegetation expression is evergreen, although the tree flora has a considerable content of deciduous elements. In all the forests, the flowering period in most of the trees is vernal.On the basis of relative density, the greatest proportions of adult trees in the Pinus roxburghii and Quercus lanuginosa forests are shade intolerant, while in the mixed and Quercus leucotrichophora forests maximum trees are intermediate in shade tolerance. With the exception of the Pinus roxburghii forest, all the forests exhibit the dominance of trees which are shade tolerant at the seedling stage_ On the basis of relative density, all forest types, except for Pinus roxburghii forest, have 74.5 to 100% trees with the potentiality of vegetative reproduction.

Floristic diversity, biological spectrum of lower Tanawal, KP, Pakistan

“…Therophytes was dominant life form which indicates disturbed environmental conditions in the study area, and biotic pressure on vegetation which increase the short live species. Our findings are in agreement with Saxena et al (2004); Farag (2014) and Ali et al (2016) which show that biotic pressure effect the vegetation. As Costa et al (2007) reported that therophytes are dominant life form in South Eastern Brazil which is similar to our finding.…”

Floristic and Phytoclimatic Study of a Sacred Grove Vegetation of West Midnapore District, West Bengal, India

“…The dominant therophytes, chamaephytes, and cryptophytes altogether constituted 49.1% of the life forms proportion. Therophytes showed the maximum divergence of the normal spectrum; other workers had also reported a similar phytoclimatic association for different tracks of vegetation [38,12,32,39]. The dominance of therophytes (71 species, 25.63%) indicates that the investigated area was under mild biotic pressure.…”

“…Climatic types may be characterized by the prevailing plant life forms in the plant communities under a specific climatic regime [9][10][11][12]. The biological spectra of the Indian region are related to specific edaphic, altitudinal and climatic factors [13][14][15][16][17].…”

Floristic composition and phenology of temperate grasslands of Western Himalaya as affected by scraping, fire and heavy grazing

“…Saxena et aL (1982) concluded that along the major altitudinal gradient (from tropical to alpine), the phenerophytes decrease in importance, hemicryptophytes increase and chamaephytes, cryptophytes and therophytes do not show much alteration. Meher Homji (1964) concluded that the life forms of different regions of the country are reflected by the bio-climate of the area.…”