Species composition and diversity of herbs at different altitudes of R.E.A.C.H biodiversity centre, Cameron Highlands, Pahang

Biodiversity Centre (R.E.A.C.H) is located at Cameron Highlands, Pahang. The study area is popular for its impressive montane forest vegetation however Biodiversity Centre (R.E.A.C.H) Cameron Highlands situated at altitudes of l, 800m above sea level is a secondary forest as in the past, and the forest has been gazette for conservation value by local communities. The forest around R.E.A.C.H Biodiversity Centre is still undergoing forest regeneration phase due to the past disturbance such as illegal logging. This research was conducted to study the species composition and diversity of herbs at three different altitudes. This study used the nested quadrat method of 20m >< 20m where only 10m >< 10m of the area were used in collecting herbs species. From the study, it revealed that a total of ll families, ll genera, 17 species and 372 numbers of individuals of herb species has been found and recorded. Among of those collected in the study, two of them were endemic to Cameron Highlands which were Argostemma lanceolamm and Didissandra longisepala. The diversity of herbs were documented in montane forest at different elevation to record the number of species per community, the species evenness, similarity index, species richness, abundance parameter and important value index. As for the all three elevation, the herbs species were slightly diverse as the value of Shannon Diversity Index (H’) moving closer to Hmax but all the plotted area within three different elevations showed moderate evenness in species distribution. In addition, most families, genera and species had highest similarity within lower and middle elevation. From the data on the density and frequency of abundance parameter in the study, it showed that Sonerila rudis was the common species spotted at three different elevations. During the study, there were three species with absolute dominance was recorded at three different altitudes which were Sonerila rudis, Argostemma lanceolatum and Zingiber multibructealu.