. The Conservation Atlas of Tropical Forests: Asia and the Pacific. India The main areas of tropical rain forest are found in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands; the Western Ghats, which fringe the Arabian Sea coasthne of peninsular India; and the greater Assam region in the north-east. Small remnants of rain forest are found in Orissa State (see Figure ). Semi-evergreen rain forest is more extensive than the evergreen formation partly because evergreen forests tend to degrade to semi-evergreen with human interference. There are substantial differences in both the flora and fauna between the
. The Conservation Atlas of Tropical Forests: Asia and the Pacific. India The main areas of tropical rain forest are found in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands; the Western Ghats, which fringe the Arabian Sea coasthne of peninsular India; and the greater Assam region in the north-east. Small remnants of rain forest are found in Orissa State (see Figure ). Semi-evergreen rain forest is more extensive than the evergreen formation partly because evergreen forests tend to degrade to semi-evergreen with human interference. There are substantial differences in both the flora and fauna between the three major rain forest regions (lUCN, 1986; Rodgers and Panwar, 1988). For example, the Western Ghats have 13 species of the important tree family Dipterocarpaceae, and the north-east has nine species, but they have none in common, and all but two of the eight species of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands are endemic. In the Western Ghats different floristic associations have been recognised and related to the length of the dry season (Singh el ah, 1983; Pascal, 1988), which varies from three to seven or eight months between the south and Maharashtra further north. The Western Ghats Monsoon forests occur both on the western (coastal) margins of the Ghats and on the eastern side where there is less rainfall. They include several tree species of great commercial significance ( Indian rosewood Dalbergia lalifoha, Malabar kino Plerocarpus marsupium, teak, and Terminalia crenulala), but these have now been cleared from many areas. In the rain forests there is an enormous number of tree species - indeed at least 60 per cent of the trees of the upper canopy are of species which individually contribute not more than one per cent of the total number (Champion and Seth, 1968). Giant trees with buttressed bases and boles that are unbranched for over 30 m are common; typical components include species oi Calophyllum, Dip- terocarpus, Hopea and Mesua (Pascal, 1988.) The montane rain fores
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