AccScience Publishing / AJWEP / Volume 8 / Issue 1 / DOI: 10.3233/AJW-2011-8_1_16
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Coastal Sand Dunes—Vegetation Structure, Diversity and Disturbance in Nallavadu Village, Puducherry, India

G. Poyyamoli1* N. Balachandran1 K. Padmavathy1
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1 Department of Ecology and Environmental Science, Pondicherry University
AJWEP 2011, 8(1), 115–122; https://doi.org/10.3233/AJW-2011-8_1_16
Submitted: 19 December 2008 | Accepted: 8 December 2009 | Published: 1 January 2011
© 2011 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution -Noncommercial 4.0 International License (CC-by the license) ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ )
Abstract

Tropical coastal sand dunes (CSD) are exposed to various disturbances. CSD vegetation in South East coast of India was sampled by belt transect and quadrate method at three gradients of disturbance—highly disturbed, moderately disturbed and slightly disturbed. Three clear zones could be identified—Cyperus sps. > Ipomea pescapre > Spinifix litoreus in the fore dune, Ginisekia pharmacoeides > Glinus oppositifolius along with few minor dune species in the mid zone, and Bulbostylis barbata, along with a few dune species in back dune. In moderately disturbed sites species diversity was higher, supporting intermediate disturbance hypothesis.

Keywords
Coastal sand dunes
intermediate disturbance hypothesis
vegetation structure
diversity
Conflict of interest
The authors declare they have no competing interests.
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