Above Ground Biomass in Tropical Rain Forests of Western Ghats, India

Abstract

Above ground biomass of four study areas in the Tropical Rain Forests of Western Ghats of Karnataka is given. The average stauding biomass of plants above 5cm DBH came to 458.204 t/ha and that of shrub and herb layer to 5.90 and 0.288 t/ha, respectively. Data on bole, branch and current year twigs and leaves of individual trees was added together to find suitable regression models against D²H and DBH, both in log and non log models. Character D²H was found to be the best estimator of above ground biomass in a double log relationship (r = 0.9579). Even DBH in a simple form gave equally good result (r = 0.923). Nine equations are given for estimation of various categories. In all the cases results were significant at 0.1% probability.