Maroof Hamid

University of Kashmir · Centre for Biodiversity and Taxonomy, Department of Botany

Globally, treeline in mountain landscapes is reported to be sensitive to projected warming by climate change. Betula utilis (Himalayan birch), a principal tree species defining the natural treeline in Himalayas, is a potential indicator species to track the signal of climate change. The present study models the ensemble distribution of B. utilis us...

Under the contemporary climate change, the Himalaya is reported to be warming at a much higher rate than the global average. However, little is known about the alpine vegetation responses to recent climate change in the rapidly warming Himalaya. Here we studied vegetation dynamics on alpine summits in Kashmir Himalaya in relation to in situ measure...

Although vegetation has been the focus of recent studies on mountain summits , little is known about smaller-scale spatial patterns of soil physico-chemical properties. Here, we report patterns and drivers of soil physico-chemical properties and their role in shaping the plant diversity on mountain summits of the Himalaya. Using the globally standa...

In an era of global environmental change, the treeline shift triggered by recent climate warming has been reported worldwide. However, it is still unknown how site-specific microclimatic conditions regulate the soil-vegetation relationship at treelines, which constrains our capacity to down-scale broad global trends in the treeline shift at regiona...

Globally, treelines form a transition zone between tree‐dominated forest downslope and treeless alpine vegetation upslope. Treelines represent the highest boundary of “tree” life form in high‐elevation mountains and at high latitudes. Recently, treelines have been shifting upslope in response to climate warming, so it has become important to unders...

Patchy global data on belowground litter decomposition dynamics limit our capacity to discern the drivers of carbon preservation and storage across inland and coastal wetlands. We performed a global, multiyear study in over 180 wetlands across 28 countries and 8 macroclimates using standardized litter as measures of “recalcitrant” (rooibos tea) and...

Studying functional trait diversity can provide crucial clues about the adaptive survival strategies of regional plant species pool. Despite large-scale trait datasets available worldwide, the plant trait data from many biodiversity hotpot regions, like the Himalaya is still scarce. In this study, we aimed to investigate the plant functional traits...

Climate warming-driven temporal shifts in phenology are widely recognised as the foremost foot- print of global environmental change. In this regard, concerted research efforts are being made worldwide to monitor and assess the plant phenological responses to climate warming across species, ecosystems and seasons. Here, we present a global synthesi...

Climate warming-driven temporal shifts in phenology are widely recognised as the foremost footprint of global environmental change. In this regard, concerted research efforts are being made worldwide to monitor and assess the plant phenological responses to climate warming across species, ecosystems and seasons. Here, we present a global synthesis...

Invasive alien species are currently considered as one of the dominant drivers of global environmental change. Till now, the majority of studies have focused on single or a few traits of alien species that facilitate their invasion. Also inclusion of all the traits which determine the transition of aliens along the different stages of invasion cont...

Compression of life zones along elevational gradients in mountains supports diverse vegetation types, and therefore offers ideal setting to study plant functional traits. Functional traits, the features that enable plants to live in varied environmental conditions, help in understanding ecological interactions, evolutionary adaptations, and predict...

Treeline ecotones, the transition zone between the upper closed forest limit (timberline) and treeless alpine vegetation, are the most conspicuous features of mountain ecosystems around the world. Understanding the patterns of plant species richness in the treeline ecotones is crucial in accurately assessing and monitoring the treeline shifts and v...

Canopy height is a key physiognomic parameter of biodiversity, productivity and other ecosystem functions in high-elevation alpine ecosystems. However, little is known as to how altitude influences canopy height in these ecosystems. This study makes use of an open-access global forest canopy height map with a spatial resolution of 30 m that integra...

Globally, the treelines at higher elevations in mountains are reported to be advancing up-slope in response to recent climate warming. However, little is known about the treeline advancement in the Himalaya due to paucity of baseline vegetation data with which to compare, thus making their assessment and monitoring challenging. To fill this knowled...

Research in global change ecology relies heavily on global climatic grids derived from estimates of air temperature in open areas at around 2 m above the ground. These climatic grids do not reflect conditions below vegetation canopies and near the ground surface, where critical ecosystem functions occur and most terrestrial species reside. Here, we...

Environmental and toxicological problems have significantly increased from the last couple of decades due to non-judicial agrochemicals. There is a drastic decrease in the growth and yield of most crops due to diseases and infections, and globally the insects and pests reduce the overall crop production by nearly 20%. In the wake of all this, the n...

Litter decomposition is a key process for carbon and nutrient cycling in terrestrial ecosystems and is mainly controlled by environmental conditions, substrate quantity, and quality as well as microbial community abundance and composition. In particular, the effects of climate and atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition on litter decomposition and its...

In an age of anthropocene, shifting plant phenology is one of the most striking biological indicators of global environmental change. Majority of the studies reporting shifts in plant phenology are available from the North America and Europe and largely scarce from the developing world, including the Himalaya; and studies integrating multiple metho...

Litter decomposition, a key biogeochemical cycling process regulating carbon and other nutrient balances, is driven by several factors including vegetation composition, litter quality and local environmental conditions. However, the relative role of these drivers on decomposition process in the context of plant invasions has been little investigate...

In an era of Anthropocene, invasive alien species (IAS) are recognized as agents of global environmental change. Given the grave impacts of IAS on ecology, economy, health, and national security, scientific inventories of IAS have assumed urgent research priority. In this chapter, an annotated inventory of the invasive alien flora of India is prese...

High elevation ecosystems of the Himalaya have warmed more rapidly in recent decades than other areas of the globe. Alpine life zones are areas lying between the elevational climatic treeline and the snow line. The limit of alpine treeline elevational position in Himalaya is temperature dependent. Satellite remote sensing of delineating Himalayan a...

Recognizing the global urgency of restoring degraded ecosystems, the United Nations has proclaimed 2021–2030 as the Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. Among various global drivers of ecosystem degradation, the long-persisting impact of invasive species in the form of invasion shadow (or legacy effect) within be- lowground soil system, even after phys...

Recognizing the global urgency of restoring degraded ecosystems, the United Nations has proclaimed 2021-2030 as the Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. Among various global drivers of ecosystem degradation, the long-persisting impact of invasive species in the form of invasion shadow (or legacy effect) within belowground soil system, even after physic...

Research in environmental science relies heavily on global climatic grids derived from estimates of air temperature at around 2 meter above ground1-3. These climatic grids however fail to reflect conditions near and below the soil surface, where critical ecosystem functions such as soil carbon storage are controlled and most biodiversity resides4-8...

The sustainable management of green spaces in cities is crucial in achieving the challenging goal of urban sustainability. The common practice of cultivation of alien plants in urban green spaces is often associated with risk of naturalisation (i.e. escape into wild), which can have sometime adverse impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services. T...

Physochlaina praealta samples were studied macromorphologically and cytomorphologically along with their detailed phytochemical investigation. The concentration of phytoconstituents showed a strong positive correlation with the ploidy level and altitudinal gradients. The total phenol content was detected maximum in the methanolic extract of leaves...

Authentic certification, documentation, and ecological characterization of weed flora are of paramount importance for future studies that would help to formulate strategies for their management and conservation. Alien plants used to pose severe threats to ecosystems, and qualitative studies on weed flora in many interior regions of the Himalaya are...

Although vegetation has been the focus of recent studies on mountain summits, little is known about smaller‐scale spatial patterns of soil physico‐chemical properties. Here, we report patterns and drivers of soil physico‐chemical properties and their role in shaping the plant diversity on mountain summits of the Himalaya. Using the globally standar...

The genus Salix L. (commonly known as willow) has been one of the valuable groups of plants for humankind due to their multiple uses. In India, the Himalayan regions of Kashmir and Ladakh harbor maximum diversity of Salix. In this context, the present study documents multiple economic and ethno-medicinal uses of Salix in these Himalayan regions. Th...

In an era of climate change, the availability of empirical data on alpine summit vegetation in the Himalaya is still scarce. Here we report the assessment of alpine summit flora in Gulmarg Wildlife Sanctuary, Kashmir Himalaya. We employed a globally standardized Multi-Summit Approach and four spatially isolated summits spanning an elevation gradien...

The study was conducted to determine the optimum medium for in vitro pollen germination for B. utilis based on germination percentages and length of the pollen tube. Studies about pollen germination and tube growth of B. utilis are limited. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the effects of sucrose (1, 3, 5, 10 and 15%), boric acid (25, 50,...

Forests play critical ecological and socio-economic roles by providing life-supporting ecosystem goods and services to humankind, including provisioning (e.g. food, fuel and timber), regulating (e.g. climate, water and soil conservation), and cultural (e.g. recreation) services. In the recent past, increasing anthropogenic pressure on forest ecosys...

The chapter provides an updated synthesis of threatened flora of Jammu and Kashmir state. Till date, a total of 429 species of seed plants, belonging to 256 genera in 87 families, have been listed under different threat assessment studies in the State. Among the 429 species assessed, there are 24 species which have been recognized as critically end...

Understanding the impact of plant invasions on the terrestrial ecosystems, particularly below-ground soil system dynamics can be vital for successful management and restoration of invaded landscapes. Here, we report the impacts of a global plant invader, Leucanthemum vulgare Lam. (ox-eye daisy), on the key physico-chemical soil properties across fo...

In the alpine ecosystem of the Himalaya, an observation of species diversity with habitat heterogeneity predicts some important factors that govern them. Information theory-based species biodiversity at the community level and habitat heterogeneity at the landscape level were studied. Resourcesat-2 linear imaging self-scanning sensor (LISS-III and...

In an era of climate change, biological invasions by alien species represent one of the main anthropogenic drivers of global environmental change. The present study, using an ensemble modelling approach, has mapped current and future global distribution of the invasive Leucanthemum vulgare (Ox-eye Daisy) and predicted the invasion hotspots under cl...

Globally, the increase in the climatic variability has led to adverse effects on the treeline species in the high-elevation mountain landscapes. Identifying the geographical space that supports the treeline species survival over time is essential for conservation biogeography. Increase in the global warming and snowmelt has made available the treel...

In an era of climate change, predictive distribution modelling and niche dynamics of inva-sive species can help in understanding current and future invasion potential. Parthenium hysterophorus (Congress grass), native to tropical America, is one of the world's worst weeds with huge ecological and economic impacts, including in India. Here we report...

Veronica peregrina L. Is reported as new record for India. Taxonomic description, photographic illustrations and comparison of diagnostic characters with its closely related species are provide to facilitate easy identification.

Supplementary files

Through litter decomposition enormous amounts of carbon is emitted to the atmosphere. Numerous large-scale decomposition experiments have been conducted focusing on this fundamental soil process in order to understand the controls on the terrestrial carbon transfer to the atmosphere. However, previous studies were mostly based on site-specific litt...

In the urban landscapes, scientific understanding of the roadside vegetation is a prerequisite for better planning and designing of sustainable cities. The Srinagar city, located in the Indian Himalayas, represents an urban biodiversity hotspot but the information about the floristic diversity especially along its roadsides is lacking. In order to...

Through litter decomposition enormous amount of carbon is emitted to the atmosphere. Numerous large-scale decomposition experiments have been conducted focusing on this fundamental soil process in order to understand the controls on the terrestrial carbon transfer to the atmosphere. However, previous studies were mostly based on site-specific litte...

Through litter decomposition enormous amounts of carbon is emitted to the atmosphere. Numerous large-scale decomposition experiments have been conducted focusing on this fundamental soil process in order to under-stand the controls on the terrestrial carbon transfer to the atmosphere. However, previous studies were mostly based on site-specific litt...

Bromus catharticus Vahl, a grass species native to South America, is newly reported here to the flora of Kashmir Himalaya, India. A detailed description and photographs of diagnostic features are provided to distinguish B. catharticus from allied species and authenticate this new record from this region.

Special Issue on HIMADRI Network

The correct taxonomic identification assumes first and foremost priority in the scientific documentation of biodiversity. The Kashmir Himalaya, located in the north-western side of Himalayan Biodiversity hotspot, is well-known for its diverse flora which merits immediate scientific documentation. In this context, the present study reports Phalaris...