No need of any research , answer should be available with learned researchers of forestry and forest ecology .
You will still need to do research if you want to 'ascertain it with certainty'. You will need to do a forest census where you measure class sizes of trees using data such as total basal area and density of each tree species. Repeating the census a few years later will reveal which species, if any, are declining. You can also count seeds and seedlings to assess if these stages are germinating and surviving.
See:
Seedling recruitment patterns in a tropical dry forest in Ghana, Volume 3, Issue 3
June 1992, Pages 375–382, Journal of Vegetation Science
DOI: 10.2307/3235763
Thank you Andrew for reply . I very well know by studying population structures of various tree species we can have some idea regarding status of particular species however , data which we gather is based on limited samples which often do not give clear picture . You very well suggested to revisiting the sites after a certain period of time to again assess the population structure of the species in question . Regards.
List out the recorded population from literature. Do a quantitative survey in each location, analysis its girth class distribution pattern. Set permanent plots and collect data on regular intervals on density and contribution to IVI, girth class distribution etc. In addition, you can do Ecological Niche Modelling to identify possible new populations of the same species.
Every thing is fine till working out population structure and analysing various species composition attributes but problem occurs when we analyse the residence time of a species in a particular size class.We arbitrarily fix size classes because we often have no alternative , therefore it is very difficult to,understand understand the time span required from moving from seedling to sapling stage and then sapling to tree girth class 1,2,3,4,....and so on.Thanx for your suggestions.Regards.
Inventory of species in a natural Forest and a plantation of one or two species mixed cropped are two different issues. More rigorous enumeration is needed in the former compared to the latter. However, available resources such as finance, mensuration equipment and able personnel are imperative in both inventory experiences. For plantation, there is usually a baseline inventory upon which further enumeration can easily be compared which is done at the point of planting but for natural Forest, a baseline inventory should be established for future comparism of species population. This is an additional contribution to all other noble ideas as highlighted by Streejith and Tewari.
There was a concept of permanent plot establishment in Forestry studies to to see the long term studies on tree crops. as said unless we have base line studies of any forests . eg. in Forest divisions we have compartment history files of the area where everything to be recorded qualitative and quantitative data almost by total enumeration in periodic interval can reveal the existence of a particular species dwindling population. But we seldom find such documents updated periodically and maintained for such a long period by forest departments. otherwise time , money , human resource is constraint to have total l inventory of forest resources even by richest nations.
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