The Impact Of Ecological Factors On Plant Diversity In Ben En National Park

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT

First and foremost, in order to complete the training program and to assess student’s

the results of learning as well as making the condition for student in investigation and

scientific research, I have conducted the thesis under the permission of the Vietnam Forestry

University, the Faculty of Forest and Environment Management with thesis’ name: The impact of

selected ecological factors on plant diversity in Ben En National Park in Thanh Hoa Province.

In particular, I would like extend my grateful thanks to both my supervisor, including:

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hoang Van Sam and Dr. Tobias. They have supported me throughout the

research process as well as during the period of completing the thesis. Besides, I would also

like to thank Dr. Lee Macdonald who comes from professor Colorado State University in

judging and fixing the controversial issue in my thesis. Last but not least, I sincerely thank for

the board of directors and staff in Ben En National Park helped me to deal with this topic.

Eventually, this is initially familiar with scientific research and as the results of poor

experiments which lead to get the unavoidable errors. I look forward to receiving suggestion

from teachers and friends.

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ABSTRACT

The thesis have provide the fundamental information in the plant species diversity and

vegetation types as well as some factors influencing on the plant diversity in Ben En National

Park. The thesis recorded about 363 vascular plant species belonging to 70 different families.

Besides, there are two main types of vegetation which witnessed in National Park, including

moist tropical evergreen and secondary lowland limestone forests, moist tropical evergreen

lowland forests and secondary forest after mining on other soils with heavily and slightly

disturbed subtypes illustrating the impact of human activities on. In terms of the first

vegetation type, it consist of some subtypes which are slightly disturbed, heavily disturbed

and shrub-land on lime stone, while the second main one is tropical evergreen lowland forest

on other soils with slightly disturbed forest on ferralitic or alluvial soil, heavily disturbed

forest on ferralitic soil and shrub-land on ferralitic soil. Moreover, there are plenty of high

conservation species living in Ben En National Park, among which I have found and

recognized a number of 7 species are listed in the Red list of IUCN (2015) and 9 species

belong to the Red data Book of Vietnam (Ban 2007) as well as many plant species are in the

face of extinction. Last by not least, the overview of the impact of ecological factors on the

plant diversity in the distribution and the development showed up in this thesis with some

such dominant ecological factors as: the canopy cover, shrub and herb cover and the

elevation.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

ABSTRACT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLE

INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................1

CHAPTER I. LITERATURE REVIEW ....................................................................................3

CHAPTER II. OBJECTIVES, SCOPES OF THE STUDY AND METHODOLOGY .............7

2.1. Objective..............................................................................................................................7

2.2. Subjects and scope of research ............................................................................................7

2.3. Content ................................................................................................................................7

2.4. Methodology........................................................................................................................7

2.4.1. Material inherited and preparation method. .....................................................................7

2.4.2. Field investigation method. ..............................................................................................8

2.4.3. Non-field investigation method......................................................................................11

CHAPTER III. RESERCH AREAS.........................................................................................14

3.1. Geographical Location ......................................................................................................14

3.2. Topography........................................................................................................................14

3.3. Climate and Hydrology .....................................................................................................16

3.4.Forest resource....................................................................................................................16

3.5.Characteristics of social economy. .....................................................................................17

CHAPTER IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION .....................................................................18

4.1. Vegetation types in Ben En National Park and its characteristics.....................................18

4.1.1. Moist Tropical evergreen in lowland limestone forests .................................................18

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4.1.2. Moist tropical evergreen lowland forests .......................................................................20

4.1.3 Plantation forest...............................................................................................................23

4.1.4 Agricultural land..............................................................................................................24

4.2. Conservation of plant species status in Ben En National Park..........................................24

4.3. The impact of some ecological factors on plant diversity in Ben En National Park.........24

4.3.1. Impact of elevation factor on plant diversity in Ben En National Park..........................24

4.3.2. Effect of the canopy cover to plant diversity..................................................................29

4.3.3. Effect of shrub and herb cover to plant diversity ...........................................................30

CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................32

REFERENCE

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LIST OF TABLE

Table 4.1. Fluctuation number of plant species and families by evelation in Ben En National

Park...........................................................................................................................................25

Table 4.2. The relationship between elevation and the index ..................................................28

Table 4.3. Familiar level in species composition in vegetation structure among different

altitude ......................................................................................................................................28

Table 4.4. The impact of canopy cover on regeneration density..............................................29

Table 4.5. the result of surveying shrub and herb layer. ..........................................................30

Table 4.6. the impact of shrub and herbs cover on regeneration species.................................31