Biomass and diversity of dry alpine plant communities along altitudinal gradients in the Himalayas |
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Authors: | Tsewang Namgail Gopal S Rawat Charudutt Mishra Sipke E van Wieren Herbert H T Prins |
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Institution: | (1) Snow Leopard Trust and Nature Conservation Foundation, 3076/5, IV-Cross, Gokulam Park, Mysore, 570002, Karnataka, India;(2) Resource Ecology Group, Department of Environmental Sciences, Wageningen University, Droevendaalsesteeg 3a, Lumen-100, 6708 PB Wageningen, The Netherlands;(3) Wildlife Institute of India, P.O. Box 18, Dehradun, 248 001, Uttaranchal, India;(4) Present address: USGS, Western Ecological Research Center, San Francisco Bay Estuary Field Station, 505 Azuar Drive, Vallejo, CA 54592, USA |
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Abstract: | A non-linear relationship between phytodiversity and altitude has widely been reported, but the relationship between phytomass
and altitude remains little understood. We examined the phytomass and diversity of vascular plants along altitudinal gradients
on the dry alpine rangelands of Ladakh, western Himalaya. We used generalized linear and generalized additive models to assess
the relationship between these vegetation parameters and altitude. We found a hump-shaped relationship between aboveground
phytomass and altitude. We suspect that this is engendered by low rainfall and trampling/excessive grazing at lower slopes
by domestic livestock, and low temperature and low nutrient levels at higher slopes. We also found a unimodal relationship
between plant species-richness and altitude at a single mountain as well as at the scale of entire Ladakh. The species-richness
at the single mountain peaked between 5,000 and 5,200 m, while it peaked between 3,500 and 4,000 m at entire Ladakh level.
Perhaps biotic factors such as grazing and precipitation are, respectively, important in generating this pattern at the single
mountain and entire Ladakh. |
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