Floral diversity in sites deranged by opencast mining in Sonepur Bazari of Raniganj coalfield area, West Bengal
Chanchal Kumar Biswas#, S. P. Mishra* and Ambarish Mukherjeeμ
#Banwarilal Bhalotia College, Asansol-713303, West Bengal (India) *School of Life Science, University of Sambalpur, Jyoti Vihar- 768019, Odisha (India) μ University of Burdwan, Burdwan-713104, West Bengal (India) ckbbot@yahoo.com, spm16j61@yahoo.com & amukherjee@bot.buruniv.ac.in
ABSTRACT
Open cast coal mining has been leading to massive damage to landscape and biological communities sustained there in. Plant communities in the nearby areas also get perturbed. The associated landscape gets overburdened with large heaps of spoil. The plants themselves tend to revegetate the overburdened spoils and undertake their remediation. The present work reveals in all 69 species belonging to 57 genera of 25 families of angiosperms on the different age series (0, 4, 8, 12, 16 and 20 years) of overburden dumps in the Sonepur Bazari coal mines in Raniganj coal fields of West Bengal state in India. As many as 0, 11, 21, 46, 58 and 69 species were recorded form the OBDs- 0, -4, -8, -12, -16 and -20 respectively. Attributes like habit, life-form, selection-strategy and prevalence in OBDs were recorded and analyzed to reveal ongoing ecological succession. Nine plants were seen to be highly prevalent (83.4%) of which Saccharum spontanium, Cynodon dactylon, Croton bonplandianum, Solanum sutattense and Desmodium trifolium deserve mention. Herb: Shrub: Tree: Climber ratio was found to be 7.6: 1: 2.8: 2.6. Life-form analysis reveals the ratios of Mesophanerophyte: Microphanerophyte: Nanophanerophyte: Chamaephyte: Liana/ Scandent/ Climber as 1.1: 1: 1.8: 3.5: 1.5.Most of the species were herbaceous and r-Strategists. The grasses and some other tolerant species were observed as pioneers getting established under the prevailing high environmental adversity, while the tree species were seen get established in later stages of succession. The Generic Coefficient of the existing vegetation was found to be 82.61% which is indicative of floristic diversification likely to successfully revegetate and restore the deranged sites.