Punica granatum L. (Wild) is an important fruit-yielding species of the world and a source of income for people, particularly in the Hindukush-Himalayas of Pakistan. | Turkish Journal of Botany Turk J Bot (2016) 40: 610-622 © TÜBİTAK doi: Research Article The influence of environmental variables on Punica granatum L. assemblages in subtropical dry temperate woodland in the district of Lower Dir, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan 1 1,2 1 1, Muhammad IRSHAD , Nasrullah KHAN , Kishwar ALI , Zahid MUHAMMAD * Laboratory of Plant Ecology, Department of Botany, University of Malakand, Chakdara, Lower Dir, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan 2 Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, . China 1 Received: Accepted/Published Online: Final Version: Abstract: Punica granatum L. (Wild) is an important fruit-yielding species of the world and a source of income for people, particularly in the Hindukush-Himalayas of Pakistan. Considering its ecological and commercial importance, an attempt was made to provide a primary assessment of its compositional pattern with relation to environmental variables for ecologically unexplored Punica granatum forests located in a subtropical dry temperate zone using multivariate techniques. The vegetation data were collected from 40 Punica granatum forest stands along with the associated environmental data (12 variables) at different locations. Classification of the stands was carried out using Ward’s agglomerative cluster analysis. In total, 20 tree species belonging to 13 families of 19 genera with 78 understories were surveyed. Finally, nonmetric multidimensional scaling ordination with associated Monte Carlo permutation tests was performed to explore the patterns of variation in vegetation distribution explained by the environmental variables. Four community types were identified in different altitudinal and microclimatic thickets that significantly varied in species composition. The soil physical properties, . sand and clay, forming an amalgam with .
