Tree diversity and community characteristics in Talle Wildlife Sanctuary, Arunachal Pradesh, Eastern Himalaya, India

This study was carried out in a temperate forest for enumeration of floristic diversity and community characteristics analysis of the Talle Wildlife Sanctuary. A random sampling approach was adopted. Altogether, 63 species were recorded from the sampled area (0.2 ha). Family dominance results showed that Lauraceae was the most dominant followed by Fagaceae. Seventy percent of species showed low frequency distribution and species having higher frequency classes were almost absent or represented by only a few species. Dominance distribution of species resulted in a log normal distribution pattern which further signifies that the forest community was heterogeneous in nature. Species Prediction and Diversity Estimation analysis categorized 80% of the species as a rare species group and 20% as abundant species group. Estimation of coefficient of variation showed that rare species have equal detection possibilities in the sampled area. Distribution of basal cover in different girth classes indicates a reverse trend to that of stand density. The results of this study show that the forest community composition is highly clustered and loosely colonized in nature.