South Western Ghats six times richer in plant species than north part: CCMB study

A Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology study has found the southern Western Ghats to be “a museum and cradle” of evolutionary diversity for woody plants, meaning it consists of both old and young species on evolutionary timescales in millions of years.

Plant species show a restricted distribution in the southern Western Ghats, and interestingly the region has six times higher number of species than the northern Western Ghats, the CCMB researchers said.

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The Western Ghats of India is a global biodiversity hotspot with many woody plants, birds, mammals, reptiles, fishes and insects, among other life forms. Many of them are endemic, meaning they are present in this area and nowhere else.

A new study by Dr Jahnavi Joshi’s group at the CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad in collaboration with national, and international institutions, sheds light on the evolution of plants in the Western Ghats region of India. Their study is published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

The group found that the evolutionary diversity is unevenly distributed across the Western Ghats, driven by past climatic and geographic processes and also by current climate. In addition, they have also seen the effects of niche conservatism for wet sites, wherein lineages tend to remain in the niche where they have evolved and continue to persist and even form a new species.

“This study complements several taxonomic studies in the region, which show the Western Ghats have a high diversity of woody plants, with over 60 percent being endemic,” said Abhishek Gopal, first author of the study.

“Large scale studies like this spanning a huge geographic area, looking at timescales in millions of years and including hundreds of species, help us understand if there are any generalities in how diversity is generated and maintained. Our study shows that the Western Ghats hold tremendous evolutionary diversity. It highlights the global value of the Western Ghats, demonstrating, in particular, the importance of protecting the southern Western Ghats - an engine of plant diversification and persistence," said Dr Jahnavi Joshi, senior author.

"The study results can also be used to augment the existing protected areas in the landscape, which are facing severe anthropogenic stress.”