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Abstract

Plant diversities and soil nutrients are important factors for maintaining the stability and ecosystem services of forests. However, these components could change after significant disturbances. The lowland dipterocarp secondary forest of Jenderak (LDSFJ) in Krau Wildlife Reserve, Pahang, Malaysia was investigated to study the impact of selective logging on sapling diversities and soil nutrients on along four transect lines which contain as many as 50 quadrat plots. In each plot, soil samples were also collected for soil nutrients analyses in the laboratory. All saplings collected consist of 53 families, 136 genera and 254 species. Results from Shannon Wiener (H�) and Simpson (D) diversity index analyses indicated that the area possess high diversity of sapling species. Of all species recorded, 63 species are in extremely rare category. Surprisingly, no sapling from the family of Dipterocarpaceae was found in the study site. The carbon (C), nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and CN ratio were low as compared to general studies reported in the primary forest. However, the exchangeable cations (i.e., Ca, K, Mg and Na) were considered high. The number of family is high; unfortunately, the number of genus and species were lower as compared to other studies in primary forests of Pahang. Based on these findings, it is argued that the low number of species, soil nutrients and absence of dipterocarp sapling at study site were due to impact of selective logging in the past in which has yet to completely recover after 30 years of re-growth.

Biography

Email: gufrinamlin@yahoo.com