Results
A total of 476 individuals belonging to 26 species of ferns were recorded in all the 24 plots, of which
10 species were terrestrials and 16 were epiphytes (Table 1). There were 15 species of ferns in the
primary forest (PF), 18 species in the secondary forest (SF) of high biomass, and 11 species in
secondary forest of low biomass (Figure 1). Altogether there were 11 families of fern and the
Polypodiaceae had the most species (7), while family Tectariaceae, Aspleniaceae and Dryopteridaceae
only consisted of one species each. Shannon-Wiener diversity indices (H’) also showed that the
secondary forest of high biomass was more diverse (H’= 2.496) as compared to the secondary forest
of low biomass (H’ = 2.0797) and the primary forest (H’ = 2.0297). Based on family classification,
Tectariaceae had the highest number of individual count (103) followed by Pteridaceae (95) and
Polypodiaceae (75) (Table 1).