Effects of Forest Roads on Herbaceous Species Composition (Case Study: Asalem Forest)

Identifying herbaceous species and their composition at forest road edges and skid trails is an urgent task to prevent changes of natural and native composition of species and invasion of exotic species. The present study aimed to evaluate the herbaceous species cover grown on the forest road surface, cut and fill slopes and skid trail surface and their comparison with inside forest in order to investigate the effects of road construction in the 2nd district of Asalem Nav forest in Guilan province, north of Iran. For this purpose, a total of 30 randomly placed 1×1 m plots were established along the 1000-m transects within each habitat (150 plots in total). The differences between averages of groups were tested using ANOVA test for data with normal distribution and Kruskal Walis test was used for data with abnormal distribution. According to results, due to soil disturbance after road construction, the herbaceous cover of roadside road and skid trail surfaces had higher crown coverage than natural forest. This results varied among habitats and invasive species appeared in the main composition of herbaceous cover of studied habitats.