Sikkim is a small, mountainous, Indian state (7,096 km2) located in the eastern Himalayan region. Though a global biodiversity hotspot, it has been relatively less studied. A detailed forest type, density and change dynamics study was undertaken, using SATELLITE remote sensing data and intensive field verification.

Sikkim is a small, mountainous, Indian state (7,096 km2) located in the eastern Himalayan region. Though a global biodiversity hotspot, it has been relatively less studied. A detailed forest type, density and change dynamics study was undertaken, using satellite remote sensing data and intensive field verification. The landscape was found to be dominated by alpine and nival ecosystems, with a large portion above the tree line, considerable snow cover, and a sizeable area under forest cover (72%,
5,094 km2).

The complex interaction of environmental stress, poor natural regeneration and insect pests have lead to forest decline in Himalayan sub-region. Amongst the insects, stem and wood boring beetles are capable of causing significant oak mortality. The paper reports the outcome of surveys on wood boring beetles carried out in moist temperate oak forests, mainly with Ban oak, Quercus leucotrichophora Camus, Moru oak, Q. dilatata Lindl and Q. semicarpifolia Smith in six sites in the Garhwal region of Uttarakhand, India.

Rates at which CO2 is being sequestered in two different forest types of Himalaya was computed. For comparative study degraded and non-degraded sites of pine and oak forests in Kumaun Central Himalaya were selected. The Van Panchayats (VPs) or community forests are managing the non degraded forest sites for centuries.

Some were more than a century old but still sturdy and doing their jobs. Many others were young and willowy, just getting going. Some of them were inscrutable; no one truly knew them or how they got there. But others felt like old friends.

The genus Quercus (oak) is a large group of hardwood trees with about 600 species worldwide1. In the Himalayan region, extensive oak forests (35 species) occur between 1500 and 3300 m elevations. Of the various species of oaks, the white oak or banj (Q. leucotrichophora) forms an extensive belt along the middle elevation (1200

Carpinus viminea (Himalayan hornbeam) is one of the lesser-known tree species of the moist temperate forests of the Himalayan region. Its ecological role is similar to that of Alnus nepalensis in the riverine and landslide areas between 1300 and 1800 m asl. C. viminea is one of the most economically important species of the region. (Correspondence)

Emission of CO2 from the soil and immobilization of carbon in the microbes were studied in two forest stands of a subtropical mixed oak forest located at Langol hills near Imphal city, Manipur (24

The present investigation was carried out to study the distribution of biomass in different land uses viz., chir pine, ban oak, deodar, other broadleaves, culturable and un-culturable land uses, distributed in five forest ranges i.e., Dharampur, Parwanoo, Solan, Kandaghat and Subathu along altitudinal gradient from 900 to 2100 of Solan Forest Division, Himachal Pradesh.

A study was conducted in different forests of districts of Rudraprayag and Pauri (Uttarakhand) in the Central Himalayas for determining the physical and chemical features of soil. The findings indicated that there was more accumulation of minerals in the undisturbed forests irrespective of disturbed forest type.

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