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Updated: 06-07-12 | ||||
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ANTHROPOGENIC INFLUENCES ON THE NATURAL ECOSYSTEM OF THE NARAN VALLEY IN THE WESTERN HIMALAYAS
SHUJAUL MULK KHAN1, 4, *, SUE PAGE2, HABIB AHMAD3 AND DAVID HARPER1
Abstract: People derive many essential goods from plant resources, including food, medicines and fodder. However, the link between biodiversity and ecosystem services and their role in the support of human well-being is often poorly understood. Mountain ecosystems support a high biological diversity including rare and endangered plant species. They also provide a home to some 12% of the world’s human population, who use their traditional ecological knowledge to utilise local natural resources. The Himalayas are the world's youngest and largest mountain range that supports a high plant biodiversity and hence provides many ecosystem services. Due to remote location, harsh climate, rough terrain and topography, many areas in the Himalayas have been still poorly known for their vegetation ecosystem services. The people in the Naran Valley, in the western Himalayas, depend upon local plant resources for a range of services and goods, from grazing for livestock to use of medicinal plants. During this study abundance and uses of each species were computed using computational ecology; principal components analysis (PCA) and response curves (RC) using CANOCO. The analyses showed an increasing trend of grazing, but with a decrease in fodder availability, with altitude increase in the valley. The assessment of such ecosystem services may assist in developing conservation strategies, especially for endangered mountain ecosystems.
1Department of Biology University of Leicester, UK, 2Department of Geography University of Leicester, UK 3Department of Genetics Hazara University Mansehra, Pakistan, 4Department of Botany Hazara University Mansehra, Pakistan *Correspondence author e-mail: shuja60@gmail.com |
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