Roadside Flora in Transition: Plant Communities Across Pine Forest Elevations | InformativeBD

Shaheen Qadir,  Adeela Altaf,  Muhammad Hashim,  Eamon Bushra,  Asia BiBi,  Nazir Ahmad,  Ishtiaq Ahmad,  Kaneez Fatima, and Altaf Ahmad Dasti, from the different institute of Pakistan. wrote a Research article about, Roadside Flora in Transition: Plant Communities Across Pine Forest Elevations. Entitled, Distribution of roadside plant communities along the altitudinal gradient in pine forests, Pakistan. This research paper published by the International Journal of Biosciences | IJB. an open access scholarly research journal on Biosciences. under the affiliation of the International Network For Natural Sciences| INNSpub. an open access multidisciplinary research journal publisher.

Abstract

In mountainous areas, road construction is accompanied by large‐scale physical disturbance that drastically modify the landscape. Road construction and cutting process of mountains removes soil and rock from the hillside above the proposed road, while soil and rock are deposited on the down‐slope area. The resultant roadsides are highly disturbed habitats characterized by plant communities maintained at an early successional stage. The present research was conducted along the roadside, consisting of Nathia Gali (Temperate forest), Abbottabad (Tropical forest) and Thandiani Valley (Sub alpine forest) to determine the associations and relationships between the plant communities and soil, grouping and quantification of plant communities using multivariate ordination techniques. The study area ranges in altitude from 2400 to 2700 m, a.s.l. A total 74 genera having 82 species belonging to 44 families were recorded during the field survey. The major families were Rosaceae (30%), Lamiaceae (23%) and Asteraceae (17%). Other families also contributed a good share in flora. Herbs contributed the more share followed by shrubs and trees. Presence/absence data were used to classify and ordinate for both sites and species. DCA axes 1 and 2 were used for data interpretation. The relationships between soil characters and DCA axes 1 and 2 were determined using Spearman Rank correlation. Cluster analysis identified 3 vegetation types. These vegetation types have been discussed in the context of topographic and edaphic heterogeneity.

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Introduction

Roads are designed as major channels of intercommunication between the communities existing in disparate strata of earth, yet it is pervasive disturbance with far-reaching impacts on vegetation and plant community composition (Coffin, 2007; Cui et al., 2009). Vegetation recovery is essential to stabilize slopes (Fu et al., 2010), increase water infiltration capacity (Walton et al., 2014), and reduce erosion and sedimentation of watersheds (Donaldson et al., 2013). Vegetation recovery following road construction is dynamic, variable and is strongly influenced by underlying edaphic and environmental conditions (Dong et al., 2010).

Roads often traverse heterogeneous substrate e.g. parent material/rock type (Deduke et al., 2016; Walker et al., 2013) that directly influence additional edaphic factors (Hahm et al., 2014; Ullmann et al., 1995; Abella et al., 2008). In particular, substrate variability influences on vegetation and species composition of roadside slopes (Neher et al., 2013). For the distribution pattern of different animals and plants varieties roadsides can also considered as entranceway and habitats or barriers (Angold, 1997).

Plant communities of roadside also provides refugees for the conservation of isolated or relict population of plant species in highly modified regions where novel ecosystems are emerging (Dolley and Audet, 2013). For example, soil depth and texture are strong determinants of nutrient contents (Li et al., 2016) which subsequently influence plant species diversity and long term species persistence following disturbance (Cui et al., 2009; He and Monaco, 2018) and roads are mostly noted as assisting to the spatial spread of alien species, since they express the basic corridor for various invader floristic species introduction, with high reproductive rates and short life spans (Parendes and Jones, 2000).

Although mountain ecosystems are considered to be at low risk of plant invasion due to their harsh climate and limited human activities but the promotion of mountain areas, particularly the Himalayan region (Khuroo et al., 2007), as global tourist destination has put these ecosystems at higher risk of invasion. Pickering and Hill (2007) described that distribution pattern of invasive plants along roadsides varied with altitude and road construction facilitated plant invasion in mountainous regions. Arevalo et al. (2005) revealed that at elevation of (1900-2000 m) the maximum quantity of alien vegetation present. Pauchard and Alaback, (2004) illustrated that along roadside with the variation of altitude between (280- 1290 m) alien varieties richness was negatively associated with altitude.

Along the environmental gradient the various well known factors that find out the distribution of the plant species include topographic heterogeneity and particularly elevation (Liberman et al., 1985), Rain fall (Hall and Swaine, 1976) and redistribution of rain fall water (Shmida et al., 1986), Edaphic factors particularly Topography(Richards, 1996), Soil texture (Davis et al., 1998), Light availability (Liberman et al., 1995), Drainage (Hubbell and Foster, 1986), Soil nutrients (Baillie et al., 1987), Light regime and the degree of anthropogenic other catastrophic disturbances (Perkins and Hatfield, 2014).

However, roadside exotic or native plant communities help in conserving landscape qualities (Khalid et al., 2008). They are also essential places to observe the floristic communities, patterns of distribution and their potential for incursion into interior environment (Trombulak and Frissell, 2000). Furthermore, roadsides are helpful for discovering the effect of climatic factors on distribution pattern of plant species across a various altitudinal gradient (Antonio et al., 2001).

In the present investigation, we assessed variation in vegetation structure and plant community composition along express highways radiating from Murree outward into Abbottabad and Thandiani in Northern Pakistan. Our primary objectives were to identify vegetation structure and plant community composition along the roadside and to relate roadside vegetation and environmental heterogeneity that affects the vegetation patterns along roadside crossing Himalayan forests in Pakistan.

To achieve the objectives of the present investigation, numerical analysis of the data was preferred. Multivariate analysis techniques are the swift tools for ecologist. Ordination analysis is also important statistical tool to elucidate major axes on compositional variation in vegetation data obtained from presence/absence record of species. Cluster analysis is mostly used (Charman et al., 1993; Franklin et al., 1999). The results of species DCA were used to correlate the response of species for edaphic variations (Dasti et al., 2010).

The aims of the present study were To relate roadside vegetation and environmental heterogeneity that affects the vegetation patterns along the roadside crossing Himalayan forests in Pakistan.

To identify the environmental factors of overriding importance in determining the nature of plant communities in these landscapes.

To know the factors which control the distribution pattern of species?

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Article source : Distribution of roadside plant communities along the altitudinal gradient in pine forests, Pakistan