Ecological Significance of Floristic Structure and Biological Spectrum of Alpine Floral Biodiversity of Khunjerab National Park Gilgit-Baltistan Pakistan

Abstract

The current study was conducted in Khunjerab National Park which is situated in the subalpine zone. The study area was thoroughly surveyed to ensure the maximum collection of flowering plants diversity. The work aimed to investigate the ecological significance of floral structure and the biological spectrum of prevailing flowering plants' biodiversity in the study area. For this purpose, we recognized four ecological zones based on altitude in the park namely the subalpine zone (3000m to 3500m), alpine zone (3600m to 4000m), super alpine zone (4100-4500m), and sub naval zone was started from (4600-4800m) altitude. The collected specimens comprised (155) plant species that belong to 97 genera and 36 families. The life forms of the collected species were 72% Hemicryptophyte (H), 13% Therophytes, 10% Chaemephyte, and 5% Phanerophyte. While the habit categories of the flora were analyzed with the help of Theophrastus classification. The breakup of the habit categories shows that the herbs with 137 species held the highest percentage to contribute the flora of the study area was with 88%, followed by shrubs with 14 species which contributed to the flora of the area was 9.03%. Similarly, subshrubs and trees contained the same number of 2 spices. We observed the phenological status of each species, i.e., flowering and fruiting conditions, and of the species that were infrequent.