Growth and Physiological Responses to an Elevation Gradient by Co-Occurring Tree Species in a Shola forest of Kerala, India

Shola forests of Kerala in peninsular India belong to the broad category of tropical montane forests represented in the continents of Asia, Africa and America. In Kerala, typical shola forests are distributed along the crest of the Western Ghats, where the altitude goes beyond 1800 m (ref. 1). In these forests, like in other tropical forest belts, altitudinal gradient is one of the ecological factors which influence structure, composition and diversity of plant community.