Species diversity, dominance and equitability in tropical dry deciduous forest of Bundelkhand region, India

Abstract

India is a large developing country known for its diverse forest ecosystems and is also a mega-biodiversity nation of the World. Forest ecosystems in India are critical for biodiversity, watershed protection and livelihoods of indigenous and rural communities. India is a country with a high population density and low forest area per capita. The livestock population density is among the highest in the world. Further, nearly 70% of the population residing in rural areas depends on forest and other biomass resources for fuel-wood, timber and nontimber forest products for its energy needs and livelihood. Fuel-wood is a dominant source of cooking energy for the Ethnic population with forests contributing significantly to this. Forests are repository of the biodiversity, gene pool resources, sequester carbon dioxide and provide lot of other environmental services. They play a vital role in sustaining the life of people and are crucial for the food and water security. The first and foremost objective of forest management in any country is to ensure livelihood security. This is ensured through better management practices and sustainable utilization of forestlands.1 Forests supply nutrients to agricultural crops through runoff water with much other complementariness in agriculture ecosystems.2 In the absence of operation planning and convergence degradation of forests and adjoining lands continued which seriously affected the sustainability of crops and natural vegetation. Due to continuous degradation of land resources, depletion of precious biodiversity and conservation functions of forests the resource is getting reduced gradually causing serious ecological concerns in many parts of the country.3 As forests disappeared, the possibilities of natural resources being conserved decreased and the possibilities of conservation also decreased. The tropical Dry deciduous forests of Bundelkhand region are under tremendous pressure of biotic interferences and climate change. There has been significant reduction in rainfall of the area due to climate change. The increase in intensity and frequency of droughts could lead the forests to lose their self maintenance capabilities against the changes already brought in due to biotic interferences. An obvious approach to conserve plant biodiversity is to map distributional patterns and look for concentrations of diversity. Further, management of forest requires understanding of its composition in relation to other forests. On this background the present study has under taken aims to assess the phyto-sociological analysis i.e. species diversity, dominance and equitability, etc. of three different forest of Lalitpur, Mahoba and Chitrakoot district of Uttar Pradesh, India which are belongs to Tropical Dry Deciduous Forest.4