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Site quality and vegetation biomass in the tropical Sal mixed deciduous forest of Central India

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Abstract

Tropical Sal forests are gaining wide recognitions due to its multifarious significance. An estimation of vegetational structure and biomass would be helpful for evaluating both productivity and sustainability of the forest ecosystems. Information regarding vegetational biomass, litter mass and fine root biomass, and overall dry matter dynamics are very limited. Therefore, the present work deals the vegetation biomass influenced by four different site quality of Sal dominating tropical deciduous forest of Chhattisgarh, India. The current study provides a framework under which all vegetational attributes can be quantified under varying site quality which is modified by different seasons. Our study revealed a significant increase in vegetational attributes and biomass as per increasing quality of sites. The density value (individuals/ha) and basal area (m2/ha) of tree, sapling and seedling in different sites were ranged from 710 to 1010, 2000 to 2500, 9750 to 14,500 and 33.5 to 46.8, 0.32 to 0.33, 17.96 to 21.43, respectively. The total biomass varied from 187.39 to 383.46 t ha−1. The fine root and forest floor biomass varied between 2.44 and 4.20 t ha−1, and 2.32 and 2.83 t ha−1, respectively among different sites and seasons. The total litter fall varied from 4.18 to 5.69 t ha−1 yr−1 across the site quality. It reflected that highest value of forest floor, litter floor and fine root biomass were seen in site quality (SQ) SQ-I followed by SQ-II, SQ-III and SQ-IV, respectively in different seasons. A great synergy exists among site quality, stand structure and biomass which surely affect ecosystem structure and its functions. Seasonal impacts are another factor that regulates vegetational statistics, forest floor, fine roots and pattern of litterfall in varying site qualities. Thus, a management implication is needed to understand site quality variation which entirely affects vegetational structure and biomass pattern that would help in strengthening sustainable forest management program.

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Acknowledgements

The first author is thankful to department of forestry, IGKV, Raipur and forest department of the Chhattisgarh for granting the permission to conduct the research work in the forest area. Authors are thankful to editor and reviewers for constructive comments and suggestions.

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  1. School of Agriculture, Lovely Professional University, Phagwara, 144411, Punjab, India

    Abhishek Raj

  2. Department of Farm Forestry, Sant Gahira Guru Vishwavidyalaya, Ambikapur, 497001, India

    Manoj Kumar Jhariya

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Correspondence to Manoj Kumar Jhariya.

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Raj, A., Jhariya, M.K. Site quality and vegetation biomass in the tropical Sal mixed deciduous forest of Central India. Landscape Ecol Eng 17, 387–399 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11355-021-00450-1

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