Vegetation Composition and Regeneration of Shorea Robusta Gaertn. in Community Managed and Protected Forests of Surkhet District

Abstract

Vegetation composition and regeneration of Shorea robusta (sal) was studied in community managed forest (Neware Community Forest) and protected forest (Kankrebihar Protected Forest) in Surkhet district. Systematic random sampling was used for vegetation sampling. Fifty quadrats of 10m×10m were sampled in each forest for vegetation study. Soil was collected from each quadrat and it was analyzed for pH, Nitrogen and Carbon. For regeneration study, seedling and saplings were counted and size class diagram was analyzed. There were 68 and 80 vascular plant species in the Neware community forest and Kankrebihar protected forest respectively. There was significant (p  0.01) difference in tree species richness, total species richness and total tree basal area between the studied forests. Soil pH was significantly higher (p  0.05) in the community forest than in protected forest. Tree species diversity was higher in Neware Community Forest than in Kankrebihar Protected Forest. Regeneration of Sal was high in both forests. In community forest priority has been given for the conservation of Sal in expense of low quality and non-timber plants during thinning process. Both the forests were found to be monodominant Sal forest since the IVI of Sal constituted more than 70%.