Spatial pattern, diversity and phytosociological analysis of woody plant species in ponda watershed, rajouri, j&k, india

The phytosociology is one of the important aspect for analyzing the structure and composition of vegetation and its dynamics. In the present study, we analyzed spatial pattern, diversity and phytosociology of woody plants species in Ponda Watershed, Rajouri, Jammu and Kashmir. Quantitative analysis on species distribution and diversity in addition to phytosociological attributes were done in two landuse classes i.e. agricultural and forest area. In all, 40 sampled plots each of 20 m × 20 m size for trees and 5m × 5m size for shrubs in forest area and 50m × 50m size plots for trees and 10m × 10m size for shrubs in agriculture fields were laid. A total of 72 woody plant species were identified from the study area comprising of 46 trees and 26 shrubs. The dominant tree species in forest was Pinus roxburghii with IVI of 150.65, whereas, agriculture field showed Ziziphus mauritiana as dominant tree species with IVI of 44.98. Among shrubs, Carissa opaca was dominant in both landuse classes with IVI of 140.46 in forest and 65.27 in agriculture field. Contagious distribution of plants (trees and shrubs) was common in study area. The phytosociological studies reveal that Importance value index, density and basal area were high in forest area, where as species richness and diversity was high in agriculture area with Shannon-Wiener’s, Margalef’s and Menhinick‘s index value of 3.25, 7.13 and 2.16 for trees followed by 2.53, 3.13 and 0.86 for shrubs, respectively. Simpson’s index of dominance was also high in forest.