Floristic Distribution in Montane Swamps of the Nilgiri Mountains, Southern India

D Mohandass

Abstract


I investigated the distribution of herbaceous species in five montane swamps using fifteen transects which wereplaced randomly (60 m × 1m) in the western upper Nilgiri Plateau. The aim was to classify swamp species accordingto the Rabinowitz’s forms of rarity. A total of 78 species belonging to 28 families and 61 genera were recorded infive swamps. Eleven families were represented by single species. Twelve species were from the family Poaceae,Cyperaceae had 11 species while Compositae had 6 species. Of all the species, the proportion of swamp speciesranged from 0.2 to 17.14% across different sites. Based on Rabinowitz’s forms of rarity, 87% species wereconsidered to be rare based on geographical range and habitat specificity. Species that were present in < 2 habitatswere classified as restricted, while those with more than two habitats were classified as broad. Forty-eight specieshad large population size while 19 species had small population sizes. Most of the common species with highfrequency and high local abundance belonged to Poaceae, Cyperaceae, Juncaceae and Eriocaulaceae. These fourfamilies comprised a total of 85% of the 6260 individuals that were recorded. It is concluded that locally abundantspecies are restricted to specific habitats and have a narrow geographical distribution, rare forb species are alsorestricted in habitat and narrow geographical range, and this indicates that rarity decreases through swampprotection and increases due to habitat loss.

Keywords


Commonness, Geographic Range, Habitat Specificity, Montane Swamps, Rarity, Herbaceous

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