Distribution of angiosperms in the Himalaya
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Date
2022-09
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G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, District Udham Singh Nagar, Uttarakhand. PIN - 263145
Abstract
Angiosperms are a highly diverse and most successful plant group on Earth. The Himalaya is a mountain chain which is exceptionally rich in harbouring diverse angiosperm flora and recognized as one of the 36 biodiversity hotspots of the world. An exclusive Flora of the Himalaya does not exist and angiosperm diversity in the entire mountain range is speculative. Considering this lacuna an attempt is made to assess angiosperm diversity and its distribution in the Himalaya. Data in this work has been collected from various floristic accounts such as books, Floras, monographs, and research papers that represented the flora of one or the other regions of the Himalaya. Every species is enumerated in the checklists of families after following APG IV system of classification and cross-examining them in Plants of the World Online and Catalogue of Life 2022 databases for currently accepted names. The results show presence of 11,624 species, 2,369 genera and 228 families belonging to 52 orders in the Himalaya. These numbers are higher than the earlier estimates and prove that 3.44% of the angiosperm species known in the world can be seen in the Himalaya which constitutes only 0.262% of the land surface of earth. Similarly, 17.29% genera, 54.80% families and 81.25% orders of the angiosperms known in the world are represented in the Himalaya. Order Poales Small (1,328 species), Family Poaceae Barnhart 864 species) and genus Carex L. (186 species) emerged as the largest taxa. Out of all subdivisions, Nepal was having highest number of
species (5,719) followed by Bhutan (5,717), Sikkim (5,476), Arunachal Pradesh (4,752), Uttarakhand (4,589), Jammu Kashmir (3,305), Himachal Pradesh (3,146) and Darjeeling (1,694), respectively. The distribution patterns of 30 dominant families and genera show that 13 families and 10 genera show a clear trend of increasing number of species from western to eastern Himalaya and 4 families and 7 genera show the opposite trend. Other 13 larger families and 13 genera do not show any conclusive trend. The results demonstrate that the Eastern Himalayan region is richer in taxa and contributes to a larger fraction of species richness in the Himalaya in comparison to Western Himalayan region.