Plant studies in the first Himalayan Biosphere Reserve: a review

Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve(NDBR) was declared as the first Himalayan Biosphere Reserve owing to its unique biological and cultural wealth. Its core zones, Nanda Devi National Park and Valley of Flowers National Park, are a UNESCO World Natural Heritage Site. In spite of lying at a high altitude, interplay of factors such as unique geographical location, climate, topography and wide altitudinal variations have endowed NDBR with a rich and diverse flora. Proportionately high percentage of endemic and near endemic plants makes NDBR a very important protected area from conservation point of view. However, its floristic wealth is facing unprecedented threats in the form of climate change and growing anthropogenic pressure. Hence, a need was felt to assess the directionality, quality and sufficiency of past and ongoing research for the conservation of floral and ethnobotanical wealth of NDBR in the absence of any such previous attempt. Based on an extensive review of more than 150 plant studies on NDBR, this communication provides a detailed account of the current state of knowledge and information gaps on flora, vegetation ecology, rare, endangered, threatened(RET) and endemic plants and ethnobotany. Priority research areas and management measures are discussed for the conservation of its unique floral wealth. Incomplete floral inventorization, lack of biodiversity monitoring, meagre studies on lower plant groups, population status of medicinal plants, habitat assessment of threatened taxa and geo-spatial analysis of alpine vegetation were identified as areas of immediate concern.     

The Distribution Patterns of Timberline and Its Response to Climate Change in the Himalayas

Himalayan region represents the highest and most diverse treeline over the world. As one of the most conspicuous boundaries between montane forests and alpine vegetation, the alpine timberline attracted the interest of researchers for many decades. However, timberline in the Himalayas is understudied compared with European counterparts due to remoteness. Here we review the distribution pattern of timberline and its climatic condition, the carbon and nutrient supply mechanism for treeline formation, and treeline shift and treeline tree recruitment under climate change scenarios. Growth limitation, rather than carbon source limitation is the physiological cause of timberline under the low temperature condition. Nutrient limitation and water stress are not the direct cause of timberline formation. However, more clear local limitation factors are need to integrate in order to enable us to predict the potential impacts and changes caused by human activity and related global change in this sensitive region.     

Atmospheric aerosol characteristics retrieved using ground based solar extinction studies at Mohal in the Kullu valley of northwestern Himalayan region,India

Aerosol parameters are measured using a ground-based Multi-wavelength Radiometer (MWR) at Mohal (31.90°N, 77.11°E, 1154 m amsl) in the Kullu valley during clear sky days of a seasonal year. The study shows that the values of spectral aerosol optical depths (AODs) at 500 nm and the Ångstrom turbidity coefficient ‘β’ (a measure of columnar loading in atmosphere) are high (0.41 ± 0.03, 0.27 ± 0.01) in summer, moderate (0.30 ± 0.03, 0.15 ± 0.03) in monsoon, low (0.19 ± 0.02, 0.08 ± 0.01) in winter and lowest (0.18 ± 0.01, 0.07 ± 0.01) in autumn, respectively. The Ångstrom wavelength exponent ‘α’ (indicator of the fraction of accumulation-mode particles to coarse-mode particles) has an opposite trend having lowest value (0.64 ± 0.06) in summer, low (0.99 ± 0.10) in monsoon, moderate (1.20 ± 0.15) in winter and highest value (1.52 ± 0.03) in autumn. The annual mean value of AOD at 500 nm, ‘α’ and ‘β’ are 0.24 ± 0.01, 1.06 ± 0.09 and 0.14 ± 0.01, respectively. The fractional asymmetry factor is more negative in summer due to enhanced tourists’ arrival and also in autumn months due to the month-long International Kullu Dussehra fair. The AOD values given by MWR and satellite-based moderate resolution imaging spectro-radiometer have good correlation of 0.76, 0.92 and 0.97 on diurnal, monthly and seasonal basis, respectively. The AODs at 500 nm as well as ‘β’ are found to be highly correlated, while ‘α’ is found to be strongly anti-correlated with temperature and wind speed suggesting high AODs and turbidity but low concentration of fine particles during hot and windy days. With wind direction, the AOD and ‘β’ are found to be strongly anti-correlated, while ‘α’ is strongly correlated.     

First results from imaging riometer installed at Indian Antarctic station Maitri

Cosmic noise absorption (CNA) measurred by imaging riometer, is an excellent tool to passively study the high latitude D-region ionospheric conditions and dynamics. An imaging riometer has been installed at Indian Antarctic station Maitri (geographic 70.75°S, 11.75°E; corrected geomagnetic 63.11°S, 53.59°E) in February 2010. This is the first paper using the imaging riometer data from Maitri. The present paper introduces the details of this facility, including its instrumentation, related CNA theory and its applications. Sidereal shift of around 2 hours in the diurnal pattern validates the data obtained from the newly installed instrument. Moreover, the strength of cosmic noise signal on quiet days also varies with months. This is apparently due to solar ionization of D-region ionosphere causing enhanced electron density where collision frequency is already high. The main objective of installing the imaging riometer at Maitri is to study magneotspheric–ionospheric coupling during substorm processes. In the current study, we present two typical examples of disturbed time CNA associated with storm-time and non-storm time substorm. Results reveal that CNA is more pronounced during storm-time substorm as compared to non-storm time substorm. The level of CNA strongly depends upon the strengthening of convectional electric field and the duration of southward turning of interplanetary magnetic field before the substorm onset.