SummarySacred forests are small patches of forest that are preserved and protected from human exploitation. Although they are identified primarily for spiritual or religious purposes, their contribution to biodiversity conservation has been widely debated. Sacred sites are known to harbour greater biodiversity compared to exploited forests, but the patterns are not well known. We studied tree diversity in a remote forested location in eastern India where sacred forests and reserve forests used by people are present. Tree data from eight sacred forest sites and nine reserve forest sites showed that species richness was significantly greater in sacred forests; species diversity and evenness tended to be greater, but these were not statistically significant. Basal area (a measure of aboveground biomass) was significantly greater, mainly due to the greater density of large trees. There were significant departures from the theoretical expectation of stem size density distributions under pure asymmetric competition for both land tenures, which indicated that extraneous mortality increased death rates of large trees under both regimes, but sacred forests had a greater range of stem sizes. Our results suggest that sacred forests can contribute to biodiversity conservation by preserving greater tree diversity than forests subject to human use.

中文翻译：

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与印度东部的保护区林地权属制度相比，神圣森林的树木群落结构复杂性更高

摘要神圣森林是被保护和保护免受人类剥削的小片森林。尽管它们主要是出于精神或宗教目的，但它们对生物多样性保护的贡献已被广泛讨论。众所周知，与开发的森林相比，圣地拥有更多的生物多样性，但其模式并不为人所知。我们研究了印度东部一个偏远森林地区的树木多样性，那里有人们使用的神圣森林和保护区。来自 8 个圣林和 9 个保护区的树木数据显示，圣林的物种丰富度明显更高；物种多样性和均匀度往往更大，但这些没有统计学意义。基底面积（测量地上生物量）明显更大，主要是因为大树的密度更大。在两种土地使用权的纯不对称竞争下，茎粗密度分布的理论预期存在显着偏离，这表明在两种土地使用权下，外来死亡率增加了大树的死亡率，但神圣森林的茎粗度范围更大。我们的研究结果表明，与人类使用的森林相比，神圣森林可以通过保护更多的树木多样性来促进生物多样性保护。