## 3 Results
### Structural Attributes and Growing Stock Volume  
The growing stock volume of the dominant and all the associated species were calculated in each elevation zone. High number of individuals (317.70 trees ha\({}^{-1}\)), and basal area (67.56 m\({}^{2}\) ha\({}^{-1}\)) were recorded for the stands at lower elevation ranges in which the dominant species shared 80.2% to density and 77.7% to basal area (Table 1). Forests of high elevation zones have a density of 290.93 trees ha\({}^{-1}\) with basal area of 64.95 m\({}^{2}\) ha\({}^{-1}\). Community type present at middle elevation had least density (280.36 trees ha\({}^{-1}\)) and basal area (53.63 m\({}^{2}\) ha\({}^{-1}\)) in comparison to other two groups due to human interference. The current study revealed that in the _Monotheca_ dominated forests, the average height, basal area and average density varied significantly between different diameter classes (Table 3). The maximum mean height was recorded in diameter class-2 (8.03 m), while the lowest was found in class-5 (1.44 m). In similar fashion, the average mean density varied between 20.24 ha\({}^{-1}\) for diameter class ranged from 25 to 44 cm to 94.71 ha\({}^{-1}\) for the highest diameter class, whereas the basal area values were significantly higher for diameter class-3 (12.71 m\({}^{2}\) ha\({}^{-1}\)) followed by class-4 (12.56 m\({}^{2}\) ha\({}^{-1}\)) (Table 3). In the _Monotheca_ phytocoenosis, volume (m\({}^{3}\) ha\({}^{-1}\)) ranged from 26.30 to 54.12, wherein 24-44 cm diameter class shared 28.8% of the total volume followed by diameter class-2 with 21.9% volume. The mean volume for Zone-I was recorded maximum (78.09 m\({}^{3}\) ha\({}^{-1}\)) followed by zone-III (61.89 m\({}^{3}\) ha\({}^{-1}\)) and stands of Zone-II (48.01 m\({}^{3}\) ha\({}^{-1}\)) located at lower altitudinal ranges as shown in Table 4. Similar trend was observed for stem biomass (T ha\({}^{-1}\)), total biomass (T ha\({}^{-1}\)), soil carbon and carbon stock (T ha\({}^{-1}\)).  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{l c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Elevation** & **600–1000 m** & **1000–1400 m** & **1400–1800 m** & **F** & \(p\) \\ \hline
**Diversity Indices** & & & & & \\ \hline Richness (S) & 23 \({}^{\text{a}}\) & 18 \({}^{\text{b}}\) & 15 \({}^{\text{b}}\) & **3.239** & **0.045** \\ Average no of species & 4.15 \(\pm\) 0.44 & 3.07 \(\pm\) 0.39 & 2.7 \(\pm\) 0.39 & - & - \\ Total no of individuals (N) & 1959 & 1713 & 1314 & 1.813 & 0.170 \\ Average no of individuals & 72.56 \(\pm\) 3.0 & 63.44 \(\pm\) 2.75 & 65.7 \(\pm\) 2.75 & - & - \\ Natural log of species (In S) & 1.26 \(\pm\) 0.12 \({}^{\text{a}}\) & 0.98 \(\pm\) 0.13 \({}^{\text{b}}\) & 0.82 \(\pm\) 0.13 \({}^{\text{b}}\) & **2.807** & **0.047** \\ Natural log of individuals (In N) & 4.26 \(\pm\) 0.04 & 4.15 \(\pm\) 0.045 & 4.22 \(\pm\) 0.045 & 1.729 & 0.184 \\ Margalef’s Index (M) & 0.73 \(\pm\) 0.09 & 0.54 \(\pm\) 0.09 & 0.60 \(\pm\) 0.097 & 0.551 & 0.578 \\ Simpson’s Index (1/D) & 1.52 \(\pm\) 0.09 \({}^{\text{a}}\) & 1.27 \(\pm\) 0.08 \({}^{\text{b}}\) & 1.32 \(\pm\) 0.08 \({}^{\text{c}}\) & **2.802** & **0.043** \\ Shannon-Wiener Index (H’) & 0.60 \(\pm\) 0.07 & 0.43 \(\pm\) 0.07 & 0.38 \(\pm\) 0.07 & 2.388 & 0.099 \\ Pielou’s Index (J) & 0.42 \(\pm\) 0.04 & 0.36 \(\pm\) 0.05 & 0.35 \(\pm\) 0.05 & 0.519 & 0.597 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular} Note: Different letter in the superscript means significant variations between the mean at \(p\) < 0.05, tested by post hoc Tukey HSD.  
\end{table}
Table 2: Species richness and diversity indices for the woody tree species in _Monotheca_ forests communities across elevation ranges.