Preliminary studies on the impacts of climate change on plants through climate witness and development of a protocol to study the indicator floral species
Student name: Ms Saumya Mathur
Guide: Dr Neeraj Khera
Year of completion: 2009
Host Organisation: Winrock International India
Supervisor (Host Organisation): Mr Sudipto Chatterjee
Abstract: Scientific evidences have substantiated the fact that climate change today is indisputable and is impacting the entire diaspora of environment. Rapid changes are having direct or indirect influence on ecology affecting both, the floral and faunal species, many of which are already on the verge of extinction. Scientists have started examining such impacts of climate change on biodiversity but research is yet to develop strong roots, particularly in the Indian subcontinent.
Plants with cyclic events such as appearances of buds, leaves fall, leaf flush, flowering, fruiting, ripening etc are among the earliest studied responses to climate change as they offer many evidence of it and hence could be good indicators and but studies of this nature are lacking in India. Hence this project attempted to explore the feasibility of using the high altitude plants as indicators of climate change in the fragile and vulnerable ecosystems of the Eastern Himalayan region.
However due to paucity of baseline studies and data sets on impacts of climate change on plants, communities’ perception of climate change and effects on plants was documented, collated and analyzed through climate witness, as climate change and biodiversity are possibly best studied by interacting with people who live in close proximities with nature and are likely to have a better understanding and perception about nature and climate. 4 floral indicator species have been identified for further validation, after which they can be used for phenological studies, initial protocols for which have also been developed.
Key words: Climate change, biodiversity, Eastern Himalayas, phenological studies, indicator species, climate witness, local communities
