COMPARISON OF FLORISTIC DIVERSITY OF FOUR WOODLAND TYPES IN THE UPPER HANTANA CAMPUS LAND

Abstract

In the Upper Hantana campus land, three broad-leaf woodlands Peresereanthes fa/cataria.A /stonia macrophylla, or mixed species woodland and Pinus caribaea woodland grow inproximity to one another. The wide range of floristic diversity exhibited by these differentwoodlands was compared using plot sampling.

The overstorey vegetation of the Alstonia woodland showed the highest, i) density, ii)floristic richness, iii) proportion of endemics and iv) plant diversity, foIlowed in decreasingorder by that in the Peresereanthes-, mixed-, and Pinus woodland. In the understoreyvegetation, floristic diversity «10 ern) was highest in Peresereanthes woodland, foIlowedin decreasing order by that in Alstonia-, mixed species-, and Pinus woodlands. Speciesrank abundance plots of overstorey and understorey species show that over storeyvegetation in Pinus woodland, fits the geometric series, whereas the others fit the logseries or log normal model.

The broad-leaf species woodlands in Upper Hantana also showed better naturalregeneration of an array of species. AIl woodlands showed differences in micro-siteconditions. Levels of human disturbance and burning may contribute to differencesamongst them. These results provide baseline ecological information on naturalregeneration in different woodland types and indicate their relative potential forconservation of biodiversity and water resources.