| Abstract |
Bagh district, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan is part of western Himalaya and
rich in Phytodiversity but little is known with reference to floristic diversity, vegetation
dynamics and edible plants through statistical tools. To fill this research gap, the whole area
was explored for the collection of field data during August 2017 to July 2020 for plant
diversity, vegetation types, major predictors of vegetation and ethno-ecological knowledge
of edible plants by the inhabitants. Documentation of overall floral elements depicted that
there were 686 Phyto taxa belonging to 423 genera and 119 plant families, thus study area
account for 11.43% of flora of Pakistan regardless of its very low proportionate land area
(0.09%). Family Compositae, Poaceae, Leguminosae, Rosaceae, Lamiaceae, Cyperaceae,
Solanaceae, Ranunculaceae and Brassicaceae were the leading families contributing more
than 41% species to the flora of studied area. Furthermore, the recorded flora showed
maximum affinities with western Himalayan elements (33.4%) followed by Eurasian
(15.6%) and Cosmopolitan (14%) elements, whereas least affinities were recorded for
African elements (0.9%). However, in present investigation, 8.31% plant species were
recorded endemic to the Kashmir, western Himalayas.
A total of 60 sites or sampling stations with 540 substations (9 plots per site) were
analysed by the latest multivariate statistical tests including Monte Carlo permutation test,
Indicator Species Analysis (ISA), hierarchical classification and Ordination. The vegetation
attributes and their response to ecological and anthropogenic factors were used to elucidate
the significant vegetation groups, classification of vegetation units, placement and ranking
of plant species in each group, detection of important gradients and pairwise compositional
differences of the species among different vegetation groups.
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The results showed that all the recorded 382 plant species belong to five significant
plant associations which were further placed into 4 major forest types. The recorded
associated were; 1. Parthenium-Ficus-Mallotus (PFM) Community (subtropical forest), 2.
Berberis-Pinus-Trifolium (BPT) Community (humid forest); 3. Pinus-BrachiariaDiospyros (PBD) Community (temperate forest); 4. Viburnum-Plantago-Pteris (VPP)
Community (temperate forest); 5. Abies-Fragaria-Anemone (AFA) Community (subalpine
forest). Out of the total 19 variables studied, CCA detected the significant contribution of
the majority of them. Topographic, climatic, edaphic and anthropogenic factors were
recorded having substantial effect on the vegetation attributes. Similarly, variation
partitioning results depicted that elevation was the leading driver affecting vegetation
distribution, followed by the climatic, edaphic and biotic factors. The forest edges,
especially the upper temperate VPP forest was recorded most diverse and species rich zone,
characterized by low fuel wood extraction pressure. However, rangelands in the subtropical
and temperate zones were affected by heavy overgrazing.
The plant resources of the region were briefly outlined with reference to edible plant
species (n=151) including 49 cultivated and 102 wild edibles. Our results showed that the
diversity of wild edible plants used is associated with the variety of gathering environments.
The inhabitants travel to the gathering sites to collect and transport these edible plants thus
exploit a greater richness of wild plants. Based on this quantitatively investigation, it is
recommended that a thorough exploration and documentation of botanical resources within
small pockets of a region are important to determine the total wealth of globe. It may
contribute in conservations, management and sustainable development of local and global
scale. Furthermore, present study highlighted the importance to document the traditional
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botanical foods which may help to combat hunger, malnutrition, poverty, inequalities
within and among countries |
