Vascular Plant Assemblage of Cliffs in Northern Western Ghats, India
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OPEN ACCESS The Journal of Threatened Taxa is dedicated to building evidence for conservaton globally by publishing peer-reviewed artcles online every month at a reasonably rapid rate at www.threatenedtaxa.org. All artcles published in JoTT are registered under Creatve Commons Atributon 4.0 Internatonal License unless otherwise mentoned. JoTT allows unrestricted use of artcles in any medium, reproducton, and distributon by providing adequate credit to the authors and the source of publicaton. Journal of Threatened Taxa Building evidence for conservaton globally www.threatenedtaxa.org ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print) Communication Vascular plant assemblage of cliffs in northern Western Ghats, India Mandar N. Datar & Aparna V. Watve 26 February 2018 | Vol. 10 | No. 2 | Pages: 11271–11284 10.11609/jot.3611.10.2.11271-11284 For Focus, Scope, Aims, Policies and Guidelines visit htp://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/about/editorialPolicies#custom-0 For Artcle Submission Guidelines visit htp://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions For Policies against Scientfc Misconduct visit htp://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/about/editorialPolicies#custom-2 For reprints contact <[email protected]> Threatened Taxa Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 February 2018 | 10(2): 11271–11284 Vascular plant assemblage of cliffs in northern Western Ghats, India Communication Mandar N. Datar 1 & Aparna V. Watve 2 ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) ISSN 0974-7893 (Print) 1 Biodiversity and Paleobiology group, Agharkar Research Insttute, G.G. Agarkar Road, Pune, Maharashtra 411004, India OPEN ACCESS 2 Biome Conservaton Foundaton, 34/6, Gulawani Maharaj Road, Pune, Maharashtra 411004, India 1 [email protected] (corresponding author), 2 [email protected] Abstract: Vertcal rocky clifs, which consist of various types of rock, are widespread all over the world. India’s northern Western Ghats consistng of basaltc rocks form probably the largest clif ecosystem globally, however, almost no studies are available concerning their foristc richness. In an atempt to understand the vascular plant assemblage of this habitat, clifs of the northern Western Ghats were surveyed for their microhabitats, species diversity, distributon of endemics, occurrence of partcular adaptve traits and potental threats. A total of 102 species of vascular plants were documented from the clif habitats of which 55 are endemic. Flowering of the species on clifs is triggered by the advent of the south-west monsoon and peak fowering is seen between August and October. Of the total species, 27 grow exclusively on clifs. Owing to habitat specifcity, clifs show a greater number of narrow endemic and threatened species when compared with other habitats like deciduous, evergreen and semi-evergreen forests, which are widespread in the northern Western Ghats. Unfortunately, this habitat faces threats in the form of landslides, periodic burning and habitat loss due to road-widening. Keywords: Clif ecology, endemic species, vertcal clifs, Western Ghats. DOI: htp://doi.org/10.11609/jot.3611.10.2.11271–11284 Editor: N.P. Balakrishnan, Coimbatore, India. Date of publicaton: 26 February 2018 (online & print) Manuscript details: Ms # 3611 | Received 30 June 2017 | Final received 15 February 2018 | Finally accepted 18 February 2018 Citaton: Datar, M.N. & A.V. Watve (2018). Vascular plant assemblage of clifs in northern Western Ghats, India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 10(2): 11271–11284; htp://doi.org/10.11609/jot.3611.10.2.11271-11284 Copyright: © Datar & Watve 2018. Creatve Commons Atributon 4.0 Internatonal License. JoTT allows unrestricted use of this artcle in any medium, reproducton and distributon by providing adequate credit to the authors and the source of publicaton. Funding: Agharkar Research Insttute In-house grant BOT 15 for MND and self-funded by AW. Competng interests: The authors declare no competng interests. Author Details: Dr. Mandar Datar works as a scientst, is interested in diversity, distributon and endemism of fowering plants of the northern Western Ghats. Dr. Aparna Watve is a scientst with Biome Conservaton Foundaton and teaches at the Tata Insttute of Social Sciences, Tuljapur Campus. She has been working on the rock outcrops habitats in India and on the conservaton of rocky plateaus in Maharashtra. Author Contributon: MD and AW did feld work and wrote the manuscript. Acknowledgements: We are thankful to the Director Agharkar Research Insttute, Pune for facilites and encouragement. We are also thankful to the authorites of BSI and GU for grantng us permission to check herbarium specimens. We thank Dr. Karthick Balasubramanian and Dr. Sanjay Molur for their critcal suggestons on the manuscript and Dr. Stefan Porembski, Rostock University, Germany for fruitul discussions. 11271 Clif fora of northern Western Ghats Datar & Watve INTRODUCTION habitats and studied for their biodiversity, environment, social, cultural and anthropological aspects. But litle The Western Ghats form a mountain range that runs atenton has been paid to the clifs of the Western Ghats parallel to the western coast of India from 8.3188890N and they have not been studied in detail. The present to 21.273330N for more than 1,600km. Together with Sri paper addresses this gap in knowledge and atempts to Lanka it is one of the 34 biodiversity hotspots designated give an overview of existng studies, foristc aspects and based on high species endemism and also high degree the ecological features of clif vegetaton. of threat due to habitat loss (Myers et al. 2000). The Clifs have atracted the atenton of biologists, region has diverse habitats ranging from dense tropical geologists and geomorphologists throughout the forests to sholas, swamps and rocky outcrops supportng world. IUCN’s (2014) habitat classifcaton of the world endemic fora and fauna. The entre range is an important recognizes inland clifs as part of the general category watershed area with many hill streams and river valleys of “rocky areas” which are generally defned as high, formed by deep weathering. The weathering has given steep or overhanging face of rock. Though they are very rise to hills with steep slopes, tall clifs and fat or conical distnct land forms, their spatal extension is difcult mountain tops (Images 1 & 2). to quantfy on geographical maps because of vertcal The Western Ghats are of igneous origin and surfaces. Larson et al. (2000) state that clifs are a type geomorphologically the range is actually the western of rock outcrop, having three essental elements: a level escarpment of the Deccan Plateau formed by volcanic or sloping platorm or plateau at the top; a pediment erupton between 60 and 68 million years ago. The consistng of base-rock at the botom; and a vertcal Western Ghats go down steeply to the coastal plains or near-vertcal part, called the clif face or free-face in on the western side, but towards the east, they merge between. Clifs usually do not form smooth walls but gently through a series of hills or spurs with the Deccan show crevices, caves and ledges. Talus or scree is the Plateau (Gunnell & Radhakrishna 2001). accumulated mater at the botom consistng of loose Based on the parent rock, the Western Ghats can rock fragments derived from the weathering of clif. A toe be separated into two sectons. The south of the river is the point where the talus slope meets the pediment. Kali in Karnataka (15N), is the region of Precambrian Ledges are the secton of clif faces that are more or less archean crystalline rocks. The hills have rounded tops horizontal and may have undercuts forming overhangs and they rise to 2,000m or more. This secton, known as (Larson et al. 2000). Figure 2 shows a representatve the southern Western Ghats is rich in arboreal diversity diagram of clifs in NWG. sheltered by dense evergreen forests. North of the The degree of slope for defning the clifs has been Kali River is the Deccan trap country having relatvely debatable, but is generally taken as more than 45°. fragile rocks with hills not rising beyond 1,650m and Distnctness of abiotc conditons from other habitats having fat hill tops showing outcroppings of laterite is a characteristc of clifs; however, similar to other and basalt (Gunnell & Radhakrishna 2001). Pascal rock outcrops, the microclimate of the clifs is more (1988) describes this secton as the northern Western extreme in terms of moisture, humidity, radiaton and Ghats (henceforth referred to as NWG), which has a soil nutrient availability as compared to the surrounding high annual rainfall (3,000–4,000 mm) but a longer dry landscape. According to Larson et al. (2000), vertcal period (almost 8 months) as compared to the southern exposed clifs are very dry, hot, have litle or no humus and central Western Ghats (rainfall above 5,000mm and and support a very limited group of species adapted almost 4 dry months). Strong seasonality together with to a harsh environment. The vertcal nature of clifs, typical geological and geomorphological features of this however, also leads to vegetaton being strongly region have infuenced the plant and animal ecology infuenced by wind and difculty in formaton and with regards to diversity of life-forms. Monsoon herbs retenton of soil. Coates & Kirkpatrick (1992) describe are abundant and show higher endemism as compared clifs as extreme environments where plant growth is to the woody endemics. The NWG comprise a large limited by the combined efects of moisture availability, number of habitat types including forests, grasslands, light, and gravity. Light may not be a limitng factor in the and rocky outcrops. In additon to these, clifs are also case of tropical regions such as the NWG, but availability a very prominent habitat in the NWG and are seen of moisture, in the clif environments certainly varies throughout the escarpment and on the major eastern drastcally with seasonal changes. In the wet period and western spurs of the NWG (Fig.