Plant diversity, population structure, and regeneration status in disturbed tropical forests in Assam, northeast India

Patterns of species dominance, diversity and dispersion in ‘Khasi hill sal’ forest ecosystem in northeast India

“…The density values of individuals of ≥ 30 cm girth were close to the values from eastern Himalayan terai (Shankar 2001;Kushwaha and Nandy 2012), Gorakhpur (Pandey and Shukla 2003), Tripura (Majumdar et al 2012(Majumdar et al , 2014 and Doboka Reserve Forest (Dutta and Devi 2013b).…”

“…In sal forests, mixed dominance of two or more species is not common as S. robusta alone weaves the framework of the forest. S. robusta commanded three-fourth of IVI in Kamrup (Deka et al 2012), three-fourth of density in Gorakhpur (Pandey and Shukla 2003), two-third of IVI in Hojai (Dutta and Devi 2013a), one-half of IVI in eastern Himalayan terai (Kushwaha and Nandy 2012), and one-third of density in Tripura (Majumdar et al 2014) and Doboka (Dutta and Devi 2013b). Mixed dominance of species in a saldominated forest occurs in Darjeeling (Shankar 2001).…”

<b>Reply to Response: Non-Inverse J - shaped population distribution</b>

“…Hence, there is a need for detailed explanation. It is stressed here because there is a study in the disturbed tropical forests of Assam where the population follows inverse j-shaped (Dutta & Devi 2013). This cited study was also subjected to heavy exploitation as similar to that of the present study.…”

“…As rightly pointed out by the reviewers there is only a slight difference in the number of individuals in the 30-50 and 51-70 cm gbh classes and this condition did not revealed the inverse J shaped population curve which indicates the continuous recruitment of young stems (Condit et al 1998). Although the population structure depicted reverse J shaped curve when the density of all trees in the tropical dry deciduous forests of Sri Lankamalleswara Wildlife Sanctuary was considered as also observed in tropical moist deciduous forests of Assam (Dutta & Devi 2013) for the whole forest. The prevailing non-reverse J shape population curve of Red Sanders would be due to the selective logging of the large girth sized trees and slow growth from 10-30 cm gbh to 30-50 cm gbh class.…”

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“…Presence of cut stumps indicate the larger intervention of local people to meet various purposes of their requirements such as for timber, medicine, food, fodder, fuel wood, building material, etc and as a result of which the Hojai reserve forest is under the threat of lopping, a major anthropogenic pressure (Dutta & Devi 2013). Among the lopped species Syzygium cumini, Zizyphus jujuba are fruit yielding plant.…”