Abstract

The moist deciduous forest occupies nearly about half the total forest area of Kerala. For most of the timber and non-wood forest produce, people of Kerala depend on these forests. Due to edaphic and climatic variations they exhibit much variation in qualitative and quantitative aspects. This forest is in the process of degradation due to various anthropogenic activities. An attempt is made in this paper to evaluate the variability in structure and decomposition in representative moist deciduous forest of Kerala with respect to species diversity, dominance, association, community similarity, successional status, girth class distribution, important value index, etc. by stratified random sampling from southern, central and northern parts of Kerala