Plant Dispersal Profile of Indian Tropical Sub-Continent on the Basis of Species Commonality

Abstract

Common species provide a basis to study plant species dispersal among any two landmasses. However, its utility and advantage to derive dispersal profile is hardly tested for Indian coastal and tropical archipelagos due to unavailability of comprehensive plant database. We analyzed an Indian national-level plant database to explore common species based dispersal profile at two spatial scales, regional (1–100 km) and biogeographical (>100 km). A total of 490 common species having 8 dispersal modes were analyzed to evaluate the relationship between geographic area/diversity to dispersed species, mean distance to dispersed species, and polychory with long distance dispersal (LDD). We found disparity in dispersal between the natural (hydrochory, anemochory) and biotic modes (anthropogenic), while effects of anthro-pochory and epizoochory are significant at two spatial scales (regional and biogeographical). In general, we observed that geographic area is directly proportional to species diversity and dispersal; while mean distance is inversely proportional to species dispersal. Western Ghats and Lakshadweep possess more number of polychory species in comparison to Eastern Coast and Andaman & Nicobar archipelagos. The number of monochory and dichory are proportionately high compared to polychory. This study supports the basis of species commonality in plant dispersal pattern.