Vegetation Ecology and Dendrochronology of Chitral

The study reports on the quantitative description, multivariate analyses, population structure and dendrochronological aspects of the constituent conifer tree species of Chitral Hindukush range of Pakistan. The underlying group structure in vegetation was exposed by multivariate techniques while major trends was exposed by DCA ordination. Density, basal area, size class, age and growth rates of dominated conifers and associated angiospermic tree species were also examined. Dendrochronological methods were applied to conifers tree species and dated chronologies with a maximum period extending back from 1411 to 2006 and 1260 to 2005 were obtained. Ring-width sequences of cross-dated sites were standardized and various statistics were evaluated. Hierarchical technique were applied to investigate different approaches to tree ring climate relationships. It was concluded that, despite the limitations conifers tree species in the study area can be used for dendroclimatic reconstruction.