Plants moving from lower to higher altitudes Expressbuzz, June 29, 2009
BHUBANESWAR: Europe has seen it. It’s gradually being witnessed in India. The pace of plant movement from lower to higher altitude has alarmed the ecologists worldwide.
Thanks to global warming, the aquatic plants are now being recorded at the higher altitudes suggesting their upward movement. One such plant which was recorded in plains has been found in Eastern Ghats by a research unit.
Nymphoides parvifolia, which belongs to family of Menyanthaceae is an aquatic angiosperm reported to have occurred in Malyasia, Australia, India and Sri Lanka. But plant researchers have spotted it in the higher altitudes of Koraput and Kalahandi.
The distribution of this species in India, according to `Flora of British India’ and `Flora of Madras Presidency’, is recorded in Western Deccan peninsula, Shillong, Konkon coast and in most part of Gujarat in plains, rice fields and water tanks at mean sea level.
But the plant ecologists came across the species from Krishnamali hills in Karlapat range of Kalahandi district and Maliparbat of Koraput district of Orissa. The plants were seen at an altitude of 950 metre to 1000 metre above the mean see level. Incidentally, it is the first time this species has been reported from the Eastern Ghats of India, says Prasad Kumar Dash who headed the team.
Plants move by dispersing their seeds in the wind blowing them to different locations. According to a study by ‘Science’, more than two thirds of plants in six western European mountain ranges have climbed an average of 29 meter in altitude each decade since 1905.
Plants creep to higher elevation to survive the onslaught of global warming.
Findings of the study suggest altitudes where those seeds might thrive has changed as temperature in those regions has changed.
Dash says species that cannot migrate fast enough to higher altitudes or cooler climes could face extinction due to greenhouse gas emissions which are heating the planet.
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