The effect of recreation, rural population and forest roads on the diversity of forest ‎understory species (case study: Zarin Abad Forests of Sari)‎

One of the consequences of destruction and fragmentation of forest ecosystems in the north of Iran is the creation of an edge effects and changes in the composition and biodiversity of the understory cover. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the edge effects due to rural roads, forest roads, rural development and recreational areas on the composition and biodiversity of understory cover in the Zarin Abad forests of Sari City. In order to conduct this research, in each of the four mentioned areas, three transects were considered in parallel with a distance of 100 meters. On each transect at intervals of zero, 50, 100 and 150 meters, sample-parts of 400 square meters were landed and in each sample plot, a list of all plant species and their abundance (percentage of canopy cover) were recorded. The results showed that the sample plots in the distances of 50,100 and 150,100 had higher Jaccard index and the 0,150 sample plots had lower Jaccard index. DCA analysis indicates that the sample plots at zero and 150 m distance from the road were different from other distances. The results of the present study showed that all the studied edge effects had significant effect on the richness, diversity and composition of vegetation, which these effects increased with the distance from the edges. Among the studied edge effects, the forest road had the least effect and the recreation area had the most effect.