A Comparative study on Biodiversity of Plant species between Natural forest and Coffee agro forest in Eastern Ghats of Andhra Pradesh, India

We studied plant biodiversity (trees, shrubs and herbs) in two kinds of forests, natural and coffee agro forests and comparing diversity of plant species between them. The natural forest contained 63 plant species in total, of which 44 were trees, 5 were shrubs, and 14 were herbs. The planted forest, on the other hand, contained 42 species of flora, including 35 trees, 1 shrub, and 6 herbs. In the natural forest, the ShannonWiener diversity indices for trees, shrubs, and herbs were 3.26, 1.53, and 2.57, respectively. In the coffee agro forest, it was 2.91 for tree species, 0.00 for shrub species, and 1.77 for herb species. Simpson diversity index were 0.95, 0.77 and 0.91 for trees, shrubs and herbs respectively in the natural forest. However, it was 0.92 for tree species, 0.00 for shrub species and 0.82 for herb species in the coffee agro forest. Jaccard’s similarity index showed that 72% species of trees, 20% species of shrubs and 33% species of herbs were same in natural and coffee agro forest.