Introduction

Culturally protected forest fragments, popularly known as sacred groves in India are relics of original forests that covered the region before forest cutting and burning initiated with the spread of civilization (Chandran et al. 1998). These preserved forest patches are usually close to human settlement, thus, forming an integral part of traditional rural communities. The growing human intervention in recent times has been modifying the natural system (especially landscape features) to a great extent as observed by many researchers (Achard et al. 2002; Lambin et al. 2003; Echeverria et al. 2006). Deforestation and forest fragmentation are considered as two major drivers of biodiversity loss, changes in climate and ecosystem function (Sala et al. 2000; Wade et al. 2003; Zhu et al. 2004). These changes have an obvious impact on sacred groves existence too that could be identified by their diminishing spatial expanse with time. In an altered landscape grove is often represented either by cluster of trees or small, isolated patches of few acres of land facing diverse disturbance regime which is in sharp contrast to the groves present within reserve forest jurisdiction or institutionalised sacred sites. Despite their size limitations, these fragments conserve local biodiversity and offer important ecological services viz. pollination and seed dispersal by harbouring honey bees and small mammals, species diversity maintenance, avifauna survival etc. (Deb et al. 1997; Malhotra et al. 2001; Ahmed 2004; Bhagwat et al. 2005; Sashikumar 2005; Bodin et al. 2006; Bossart et al. 2006; Ray and Ramachandra 2010; Chandran et al. 2010; Chandrashekhara 2011; Hu et al. 2011).The biological significance of many a sacred grove, as evidenced by the presence of rare and endemic species, brought out in several studies highlighting their conservation values (Jamir et al. 2003;  Chandran et al. 2008; Rao et al. 2011; Sunil et al. 2012; Gao et al. 2013).   

Globally, there has been a trend to recognise the importance of remnant patches, woodlands for protection of biodiversity in production landscape. Studies have already emphasized their vital role in providing shelter to a good number of biodiversity elements (i.e. plants, animals and lower group of life forms) in an otherwise modified or converted ecosystems (O’Neal 2004; Aerts et al. 2006; Gardner et al. 2009; Lindenmayer et al. 2009; Cox and Underwood 2011). Sacred groves are unique in this regard as their existence is very much related to cultural and religious life of the community, therefore, enjoying social protection to some extent (Ormsby and Bhagwat 2010).

In India, most studies on sacred groves have encompassed floral and faunal diversity and maintenance of rare threatened and endemic species with limited descriptions of the ecological profiles and disturbance regimes from some regions (Malhotra et al. 2001; Khan et al. 2008). Relatively large groves in Kodagu district of central Western Ghats  where the faith in their guardian gods still strong, harbour a good number of forest tree and bird species even outside the forest. In a landscape dominated by cultivated crops, groves have significant contribution in conservation of biodiversity in the coffee-agriculture dominated landscape matrix (Bhagwat et al. 2005; Ambikakunige and Satish 2009; Page et al. 2010). In Eastern Ghats highlands of southern peninsular India leaving forest areas aside, sacred groves continue to be the most species rich ecosystem in agricultural landscapes (Aiama 2007). However, realizing the groves’ presence in diverse ecosystems and varied degrees of management and disturbances they face, it is pertinent to explore their potential and constraints in diverse land use and management scenario.

Despite literature abounding on sacred groves especially the richness of rare and endemic species they harbour, very few studies have uncovered greater details of their population status, reproductive biology,  survival strategy (but see Tambat et al. 2005; Pundee 2007; Rajanikanth et al. 2010). These become important in conservation planning and management particularly in humanised landscape as conservation is often tied with livelihood and utilitarian aspects (Cox and Underwood 2011; Mendenhall et al. 2011; Sambuichi et al. 2012).  Thus, an understanding of the quantitative details of the ecological correlates is necessary for rare/endemic species persistence as a part of humanized landscape.

In this study, we evaluated the status of woody endemics in sacred groves and contrasted it with the surroundings in a 25km² large landscape located in central Western Ghats of India. We investigated – 1) Landuse dynamics of the study area 2) Role of sacred groves in the survival and continuity of endemic tree species in the study landscape and 3) On potential factors which may affect their future existence.