Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Ecological Indicators journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolind Multivariate analyses of the vegetation of the western Himalayan forests of Muzaffarabad district, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan Arshad Mahmood Khan a,b, ⁎ , Rahmatullah Qureshi a , Zafeer Saqib c a Department of Botany, Pir Mehr Ali Shah Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi, Pakistan b Department of Botany, Govt. Hashmat Ali Islamia Degree College Rawalpindi, Pakistan c Department of Environmental Science, International Islamic University Islamabad, Pakistan ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Muzaffarabad western Himalaya Vegetation diversity Indicator species analysis Variation partitioning Partial canonical correspondence analysis ABSTRACT Muzaffarabad district, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan is part of the western Himalaya and rich in phyto- diversity, but until now little was known about its plant diversity on larger spatial scale and vegetation com- position through multivariate statistical tools. To fill this research gap, the whole district was ecologically ex- plored for the collection of field data from August 2014 to July 2016. For vegetation studies, a total of 16 altitudinal transects comprising 110 sampling stations (samples) with 990 plots were studied by using a stratified random vegetation sampling method. Different multivariate statistical tools including Monte Carlo permutation test, Indicator species analysis, hierarchical clustering, ordination, variation partitioning and multi-response permutation procedures tests were used for the first time for the study area to elucidate the number of significant vegetation groups, ranking and placement of plant species in these groups, classification of vegetation units, detection of important gradients, importance of groups of environmental variables and pairwise compositional differences of the species groups respectively. The results showed that all the recorded 343 plant species belong to seven significant plant associations which were further placed into 5 major forest types. Out of the total 19 variables studied, CCA detected the significant contribution of the majority (simple effects: 12; unique effects: 8) of them. The latter (unique effects) in descending order included altitude, forest cover, deforestation, community maturity, forest density, latitude, slope aspect, and longitudinal variations. Similarly, variation partitioning results depicted that topography was the leading driver affecting vegetation distribution, followed by the biotic and edaphic factors. The forest edges, especially the sub-alpine ecosystem, were most diverse, supported higher tree density and also faced maximum deforestation pressure. Furthermore, rangelands in the temperate to alpine zones were affected by heavy overgrazing. Due to the disrupted local ecosystem functioning, the study area needs proper management and conservations plans to save its biodiversity wealth in this part of western Himalaya. 1. Introduction Ecological studies related to forest plant species, their compositional dynamics and relationship with the environment provide information about the biodiversity status of an area. Forests are the most valuable and precious natural resources that need recurrent conservation plan development, implementation and monitoring activities for saving di- versity on a global scale (Khan et al., 2015, 2018a). The Himalayan montane range is one of the most versatile ecosystems with varying climate, high seasonality and a great variety of plant groups and spe- cies, but due to remoteness of the area, bumpy landscape and uncertain geopolitical situation, the majority of the areas are still ecologically unexplored (Kala and Mathur, 2002; Oommen and Shanker, 2005; Khan et al., 2013). The majority of published botanical work (Stewart, 1972; Ahmad et al., 2009; Dickoré and Nüsser, 2000; Dar et al., 2012; Khan et al., 2015, 2018a) from Pakistan (Himalayas) is comprised of floral inventories for writing floras or ethnobotanical studies. Few quantita- tive studies (Wazir et al., 2008; Saima et al., 2009; Khan et al., 2011, 2013; Shaheen et al., 2011a, 2012) were conducted to record the plant communities and their associated environment for the regional vege- tation and biodiversity patterns. Community ecology deals with the study of number and composi- tion of plant species within a geographic unit, both on temporal and spatial scales (McGill et al., 2006). Environmental factors like soil, climate and anthropogenic activities control the pattern of vegetation structure, types and composition (Chawla et al., 2008; Moldan et al., https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2019.05.048 Received 2 April 2018; Received in revised form 25 April 2019; Accepted 19 May 2019 ⁎ Corresponding author at: Department of Botany, Pir Mehr Ali Shah Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi, Pakistan. E-mail addresses: arshadbotanist@gmail.com (A.M. Khan), zafeer@iiu.edu.pk (Z. Saqib). Ecological Indicators 104 (2019) 723–736 1470-160X/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T