Assessment of plant biodiversity in tropical dry forests of Sialkot, Pakistan; insight into environmental, anthropogenic influence and conservation strategies

作者：Khurram Shahzad, Waqar Ali, Sohaib Muhammad, Junhu Dai, Umar Zeb, Mengyao Zhu · 发表于：Frontiers in Forests and Global Change · 年份：2024 · DOI：10.3389/ffgc.2024.1362117 · 被引用次数：7 · 研究领域：African Botany and Ecology Studies、Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management、Ethnobotanical and Medicinal Plants Studies

The tropical dry forests (TDF) have an enormously rich flora and fauna that offer various ecological services to the surrounding human societies. Biodiversity assessment is mandatory for implementing any sustainable forest management policy, which is why it is one of the important criteria and indicators currently used. Threats to TDF biodiversity are the primary challenges arising from environmental concerns caused by anthropogenic activity leading to global warming issues. The study aimed to investigate the vegetation assessment and several environmental and anthropogenic variables influencing forest biodiversity from 5 threatened forest sites of District Sialkot (Ghalotian, Kishan Garh, Daburgi Chanda Singh, Pir Kot, and Ghulab Garh), Pakistan. We collected 170 distinct plant species, including 135 dicots, 27 monocots, seven pteridophytes, and one bryophyte, categorized into 138 genera and 62 families, divided into 114 herbs, 32 trees, and 24 shrubs. The phytosociological analysis described the quantitative characteristics, including % frequency, % density, % cover, and importance Value Index (IVI) of all forest areas. Gulab Garh forest has the richest biodiversity forest area, and herbs are the dominant species that have been documented. Environmental factors such as temperature, precipitation, organic matter, soil pH, Ca +2 , Mg +2 , Na + , Cl − , and electric conductivity (EC) strongly affect forest vegetation investigated by principal coordinate analysis. Shannon and S...