Abstract

The Gautala Reserve forest is a Tropical dry deciduous forest. The area has been declared as a Gautala Autramghat Wildlife Sanctuary for the conservation of the flora, fauna and environs of that zone. A comprehensive survey has been carried out during the year 2017-2018. The fifteen sites were selected for the identification of plant species and their existence at Gautala Sanctuary Area. Quantitative characters of plant species were recorded and identified. Total 91 species were found during the survey. Out of it 41 species of trees, 24 species of shrubs, 12 species of herbs and 6 species of climbers belonging to 85 genera in 44 families have been recorded. The Fabaceae family has a maximum number of species (26 species). Based on this data morphological identification of plants was carried out. Based on present study, It is recommended that the botanical collection and documentation of ethnobotanical knowledge be carried out before such rich habitats are lost due to various anthropogenic and other natural causes. Therefore the proper data of plant diversity could play a significant role in planning for the preservation and sustainable use of existing resources in the forest areas.

1. Introduction

Plant diversity is ecological assets to human life and livelihood. Mostly, local people depend on products, services, or even land from nearby natural areas to meet their livelihood needs. The Reserved forests have played an important role in preserving plant diversity although providing substantial advantages to households in rural areas ^{1, 2, 3}.

Quantitative analysis on plant species diversity gives the morphological status and distribution pattern which may help in biodiversity preservation. Quantitative data are frequently obtained through ecological inventories that are used to determine the nature and distribution of biotic assets of the region to be managed ⁴. Evaluation of plant species distribution and abundance is a significant aspect as they contribute to the structural characteristics of the forest and provide assets and habitat for various species ^{5, 6}. Plant diversity varies significantly from location to location due to variety in biogeography territory and disturbance ⁷. The details on plant composition and forest structure helps in protecting threatened and economic species, and to understand the forest ecology dynamics for nature preservation ⁸. All human societies showed a profound interest in utilization as well as conservation of biodiversity in a sustainable manner to which India has no exception. India has two mega biodiversity centers especially in plant species viz., North eastern Himalayan region and the Western Ghats. Indian forests are rich in medicinal plant species with a wide spectrum of healing characteristics ⁹. The sanctuary is suitable for a large number of birds, mammalian, and invertebrate species ¹⁰. It is of utmost importance to assess the actual herbal wealth of Gautala sanctuary ¹¹. The present study has been carried out of baseline information about the status of different plant species occupying the Gautala reserve forest.

2. Material and Methods

Gautala reserve forest is also renowned as “Gautala Autramghat Wildlife Sanctuary” is situated in the west-north direction of the Aurangabad District, Marathwada region. It has a region of about 261 sq. km. It covered 64 sq. km area of Jalgaon District and 197 sq. km. area of Aurangabad District. Its geographical position is longitude E 740, 55’, latitude N 190, 54’, and altitude 1904 ft. ¹². The annual rainfall is near about 550-600 mm. It goes high up to 45°C in summer and falls down to 8°C in winter. The Gautala sanctuary is very much famous for its well-known flora of medicinal plants, some of the woody shrubs and herbs etc. which are grown in natural conditions ¹³.

The frequently visited various 15 spots were selected for the identification of plants at Gautala sanctuary (Figure 1). Different types of plant species were observed during the survey. Their qualitative characters were noted at site and photographed by using high-quality digital cameras. Photographs were identified at the Department of Environmental Science, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University, Aurangabad, India. Based on the data, morphological identification of plants was done.

Flora of the entire study zone was divided into five quadrats of 1.2 km x 1.2 km each having the area of 100m x 100m. In each of these a 5m x 5m quadrats were marked for sampling of shrubs and herbs etc. The total numbers of trees, shrubs, herbs, climbers etc. were counted in each respective quadrats. The present study demonstrates the average of plant diversity observed in the Gautala forest. Botanical families were grouped by using reference material, recent scientific publications, and morphological studies. The sanctuary areas were surveyed using a systematic sampling technique. The size and number of quadrats were determined using the species area-curve ¹⁴.

To identify plant species with similar diversity based on the diversity of species in rainy, winter and summer season by using K means Clustering method. Analyses were done using statistical and qualitative data analysis software i.e. R Studio.

K-means is one of the simplest unverified learning algorithms. The procedure involves classifying a given plant species into a certain number of clusters (assume K clusters) fixed a prior with similar characteristics. The main knowledge is to describe K centers, one for each cluster. The better choice is to place centers as much as possible far away from each other. The next step is to take each point belonging to a given all Plant Species and associate it to the nearest center. When no point is awaiting, the first step is finished and an early group age is completed. At this point, it is essential to re-calculate k new centroids as the barycenter of the clusters resulting from the earlier step. Afterward, these k new centroids, a new binding, had to be done among the same statistics set points and the nearby new center. A loop had been produced. As a result of this loop, it is noticed that the k centers variation their position phase by phase until no extra variations were completed or in other words centers didn’t change anymore. To conclude, algorithm aims at decreasing an objective function recognized as a squared error function given by:

(1)

Where,

‘||x_i - v_j||’ is the Euclidean distance between x_i and v_j.

‘c_i’ is the number of data points in the i^th cluster.

‘c’ is the number of cluster centers.

Let X = {x₁,x₂,x₃,……..,x_n} be the set of data points and V = {v1,v2,…….,vc} be the set of centers.

1) Randomly selected ‘c’ cluster centers.

2) Calculated the distance between each data point and cluster centers.

3) Assigned the data point to the cluster center whose distance from the cluster center is the minimum of all the cluster centers.

4) Recalculated the new cluster center using:

(2)

Where, ‘c_i’ represents the number of data points in i^th cluster.

5) Recalculated the distance between each data point and new obtained cluster centers.

6) If no data point is reassigned then stop, otherwise repeat from step 3.

3. Result and Discussion

The records of twelve months rigorous study (i.e. June-2017 to May-2018) were pooled for three seasons and evaluated for seasonal variations regarding rainy, winter, and summer. The outcomes of present study showed a significant variance in plant diversity properties with different seasons. The ecological factors indicated some of most common plant species which occurred in study area is Azadirachta indica, Ficus benghalensis, F. religiosa, F. racemosa, Syzygium cumini (Myrtaceae), Butea monosperma (Fabaceae), Dalbergia sissoo (Fabaceae), Acacia leucophloea (Fabaceae), Gliricidia varieties in various seasons in the exploration area depending upon the topography. Average of plant diversity of seasonal variations in forest areas of study spots are given in (Figure 2). In the present investigation, 91 plant species belonging to 85 genera in 44 families have been recorded, and the results of the study placed in Table 1. A total of 41 species of trees, 24 shrubs, 12 herbs and 6 climbers species have been included (Table 2). The Different families in the present study are Fabaceae (26), Malvaceae (4), Poaceae (3), Apocynaceae (3), Combretaceae (3), Lamiaceae (3), Rutaceae (3) etc. (Table 2). The Fabaceae family has the maximum number of species found at the Gautala sanctuary. In the present study, A total 44 plant families recorded that 4 species are monocotyledons and remaining 40 families have been dicotyledons (Table 2). The present investigation gives baseline and detailed information about the plant diversity of Gautala reserve forest. The whole causes of diversity loss are the similar as those responsible for land use and surface of land change. The existing natural forests protected our living environment ¹⁵. Enormous regions of diverse forest are degraded or lost every year with considerable outcomes for biodiversity. Overexploitation, and invasive species, Fragmentation, Deforestation and climate change are the main factors of forest biodiversity loss ^{16, 17, 18, 19}.

Fabaceae, Poaceae, Rubiaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Acanthaceae, Asteraceae, Lamiaceae, etc as the different families of Indian forest ^{20, 21}. A great similarity is evident at the family level and It's clear that across various tropical forests. Chauhan et al., ²² reported dominant families are Fabaceae (14 species), Euphorbiaceae, Moraceae, and Mimosaceae (7 species each) followed by Caesalpiniaceae and Verbenaceae. These dominant families were found in the Terai-Bhabhar of Sohagibarwa Wildlife Sanctuary, India. Combretaceae, Meliaceae, Mimosaceae, Celastraceae and Rubiaceae were the predominant families of Bannerghatta National Park in Eastern Ghats of southern India ²³. Bokhary and Awad ³, Detailed that the most dominant families were Fabaceae (33.8%) followed by Combretaceae (10.8%), Capparaceae (9.5%), and Malvaceae (9.5%) respectively found in El Reserved forest, Sudan. Shukla and Singh ²⁴, observed that the family Fabaceae signifies maximum quantity i.e., seventeen species, followed through Moraceae (07), Combretaceae (06), Myrtaceae (05) Rutaceae (04), Anacardiaceae, Euphorbiaceae and Rubiaceae with 3 species, respectively. Also, the families Annonaceae, Apocynaceae, Burseraceae, Embenaceae, Lamiaceae and Meliaceae originate with two species of each in the surveyed zone. Fabaceae found the predominant family with 26 species, onward the gradients in the dry deciduous forests of Godavari valley, Telangana State ²⁵.

K means clustering method is used for clustering the 91 Species into Clusters having the similar diversity and for the current study using the k=5. Therefore, Total 5 Clusters are derived with K means method. Each cluster contains the Plant Species with similar diversity. (Table 3). The clustering analysis in this examination proposed the presence of indicator species. Indicator species are species that are used as a biological indicator community, territory type or Natural changes ^{26, 27}.

1. There are only five Plant Species in the cluster 4 having the higher average biodiversity among all other Plant Species.

2. Plant Species in the cluster 3 have 141 average diversity which is lowest among all other Clusters.

3. Cluster 3 contains the highest number of Plant Species with similar diversity.

Following plant species were observed during the survey:

4. Conclusion

A total of 91 higher plant species in 84 genera and 44 families were recorded. In the present study, Gautala reserve forest Dist. Aurangabad, Observed 91 plant species with different families as: Acanthaceae, Anacardiaceae, Annonaceae, Apocynaceae, Asteraceae, Bignoniaceae, Bixaceae, Boraginaceae, Burseraceae, Celastraceae, Combretaceae, Convolvulaceae, Ebenaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Fabaceae, Lamiaceae, Lauraceae, Leguminaceae, Lythraceae, Malvaceae, Martyniaceae, Meliaceae, Menispermaceae, Mimosaceae, Moraceae, Myrtaceae, Nyctaginaceae, Oxalidaceae, Phyllanthaceae, Ranunculales, Rhamnaceae, etc. (Table 2). In the present study, the Fabeceae family found the maximum number of species (Figure 5). The Different varieties of plants in Gautala sanctuary constituted about 50-100 plant species. It is highly probable that the medicinal properties of the remaining plant species have not yet been discovered or documented. It is recommended that the botanical collection and documentation of ethno-botanical knowledge be carried out before such rich habitats are lost due to various anthropogenic and other natural causes ¹¹. The so far unexplored Gautala sanctuary was surveyed for its plant diversity.

The present study provides basic information about the different plant species, which are presently found in the Gautala Sanctuary. Such a list could play a crucial role in the local and regional structure involved in the conservation of valuable plant diversity for superior and well protected future, use of well-being for upcoming generations and sustainable development of the zone.

Acknowledgements

Thankful to Dr. S. S. Patil Sir for encouragement and guidance and also thanks to Dr. Pardeshi Sir for providing valuable information about related topics. Special thanks to all staff of the Department of Environmental Science and colleagues. The authors would like to thank the Forest Department and Wildlife Staff of the Gautala Sanctuary.

Funding

There is funding from Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), Centrally-Administered Short-Term Doctoral Fellowship, support for this Research Work.

Conflict of Interest

The authors do not have any conflict of interest.

References