Abstract

Pokaew, C. (1993)

The Diversity of Trees and Seedlings in Burnt and Non-Burnt Forest

This paper presents a comparison of forest after 20 years of fire protection with an adjacent area where fires occur annually. The ratio of seedlings per tree in the burnt area (4.59) was higher than in the non-burnt area (2.10). Species diversity was not different in both sites for seedlings but it was different for adults. The difference in the number of species on both sites was small but the species composition differed. Fire seemed to have little effect on the establishment of seedlings but it did reduce the number and range of species growing up from seedlings into trees. The species of Lithocarpus elegans (Ko mon), Dipterocarpus obtusifolius (Yang hiang), Quercus kerrii (Ko phal) and Buchnania latifolia (Mamuang hua maeng wan) were more abundant in the non-burnt site, whilst Shorea obtusa (Teng) seemed to prefer burnt areas