Floristical and Ecological assessment of Joint Forest Management Plantations and Natural Forests

Abstract

The present paper aimed to study the floristic diversity of Joint forest management plantations in the villages of Rajpipla (East) forest division of Gujarat situated in India. Floristic inventory and diversity studies were conducted using various sampling methods. This study aims to characterize the forest communities and to identify and compare the plant species diversity in the study area. For this purpose, 18 villages with 54 plots were sampled by a randomized method. Species richness, Shannon, and Simpson indices were applied to quantify diversity of the different communities. A total of 40 tree species belonging to 25 families were recorded from JFM Sites and 30 tree species from 22 families were observed from adjoining natural forest villages. The major families for JFM were Mimosaceae, Anacardiaceae and Combretaceae with four tree species of each, and for natural forests the families dominant were Combretaceae and Caesalpiniaceae (3 species each). The tree layer in the JFM and natural forests is dominated by Tectona grandis L., which shows maximum IVI value. In all the studied area, areas with JFM forests have exhibited higher species diversity compared to natural forests.