SURVEY OF CLIMBERS IN ATCHANKULAM, KOTTARAM PANCHAYAT, KANYAKUMARI DISTRICT, TAMILNADU, INDIA

Climbing plants are one of the most interesting group but a much neglected group of plants. But, they also play a part in historical importance of our ancient buildings which owe their attraction to the green veil which covers up their architectural or structural defects making them assume perfect beauty in our eyes. The present survey reveals that angiospermic climbers of the study area are represented by 94 species under 63 genera belonging to 32 families. Among all families, Convolvulaceae, Papilionaceae (7 species) and Vitaceae are the most dominating family species as well as genera wise. The dominant families are Convolvulaceae, Papilionaceae, Vitaceae, Apocynaceae, Menispermaceae and Oleaceae. The most abundant liana species include the thorny stragglers Pterolobium hexapetalun (Caesalpiniaceae), Lantana camara (Verbenaceae), and the twiners Jasminum angustifolium (Oleaceae), Gymnena sylvestre (Asclepiadaceae) and Aganosmacymosa var. cymosa (Apocynaceae). The enumerated climbing modes were classified into woody vines, the lianas (75) and herbaceous vines (19). Six climbing modes of lianas were recognized as stem twiners (37) followed by stragglers-unarmed (28), stragglers unarmed (10), tendril climbers (17), root climbers (1) and hook climber (1).


INTRODUCTION
Climbing plants are defined as plants incapable of autonomous vertical support once they reach a certain height and depend on other plants for support in their natural environment (Gentry, 1991). The climbing habit has arisen several times in the evolutionary history of Angiosperms, and this has resulted in a great taxonomic diversity of climbing plants (Gentry, 1985). Families such as Smilacaceae, Menispermaceae, Passifloraceae, Cucurbiaceae and Convolvulaceae are essentially entirely composed of or dominated by species with a climbing habit. Climbing plants are an interesting but much neglected group. This group consists of plants that are rooted in the ground but need support for their weak stems, and both herbaceous (vines) and woody (lianas) climbing plants can be found. Recent reviews of the role of climbers in forest ecosystems (Putz and Mooney, 1991;Schnitzer and Bongers, 2002;Wright et al., 2004;Phillips et al., 2005) have highlighted the abundance, competitive abilities, and contribution to disturbance regimes. Today, climbing plants typically contribute 2-15% of the leaf biomass and about 5% of the wood biomass to forests (Fearnsideet al., 1999;Gerwing and Farias, 2000;Clark et al., 2008). In climber-rich areas, they can contribute as much as 40% of the estimated total biomass (Hegarty and Caballe, 1991;Perez-Salicrupet al., 2001). Climbers not only form important structural components but also play an important ecological role in forest dynamics, diversity and nutrient recycling (Gentry and Dodson 1987;Schnitzer and Bongers, 2002). No comprehensive work is available for climbers in the study area. Therefore, the objective of the present study is to document the angiospermic climbers of Atchankulam, KottaramPanchayat, Kanyakumari District.

Description of the Study Area
The present study was carried out in Atchankulam of KottaramPanchayat and AgastheeswaramTaluk of Kanyakumari District. This District constitute the southernmost step of India, with Kerala on the West-North, Tirunelveli District in the North-East Arabian sea in the South -West, Bay of Bengal in the south-East and Indian ocean in the south. The annual rainfall of this area is low when compared to other areas of the Kanyakumari District. There are nearly 1450 families are live in this panchayat. Most of the people are coolies or farmers.

Floristic Survey
The present study was carried out through  Henry et al., 1987;1989;Chandrabose and Nair 1988
Plasticity in eco-physiological traits has been related to the ecological breadth of forest forms (Saldana et al., 2005) and shrubs (Valladareset al., 2000) but this issue has not been addressed for climbing plants. It is verified that climbers and rest supporting species would share functional strategies to successfully cope with light heterogeneity, despite the intrinsic differences between these growth forms (Rowe and speck, 2005). It has been earlier shown that climbing plants exhibit life history trade-offs along forest light environments similar to those of trees (Gilbert et al.,2006)  comparable among lianas and trees (Domingueset al., 2007). Because earlier work has suggested possible differences in the ecology of climbing plants in tropical and temperate rain forests. This result is consistent with the conclusion of Rundel and Franklin (1991), who in their study on vines of arid and semiarid environments, reported that the great majority of arid zone climbers are herbaceous (Vines) .while woody climbers are rare. Even though Olaxscandens (Oleaceae), Chilocarpusatrovinens (Apocynaceae), Artabtryszeylamicus (Annonaceae) and Calamusgamblei (Arecaceae) were reported as most abundant species in the western Ghats and Strychnos minor (Loganiaceae) in the tropical dry evergreen forests on the colonnade coast of India (Parthasarathyet al., 2004) these species did not occur in the study site. Only one climbing mode, the grapnel-like climbing (rattans) which was reported from Indian Western Ghats sites (Muthuramkumar and Parthasarathy, 2000) did not occur in our study sites.
Presently, plant vegetation's are subjected to various anthropogenic pressures and the data so plant diversity such as this on lianas will be useful in highlighting the importance of this vegetation in species conservation and management.
Contrary to findings from tropical forests (Balfour and Bond, 1993, Sridhar Reddy and Parthasarathy, 2003, Dewaltet al., 2006, Yan et al., 2006 trees were not represented among the 94 climbing plants of study area. According to EL Hadidiet al., (1992)  The comparison between the members of desert climbing plants in Egypt and those of deserts in other continents revealed that ConvolvulaceaeLeguminosae, Cucurbitaceae and Asclepiadaceae were the dominant plant families (Parsons, 2005). In the present survey Convolvulaceae, Papilionaceae and Vitaceae are the dominant families Speciation in the family Convolvulaceae, has been more prolific in the Desert of India where it is the fourth largest family of vascular flora (Shmida, 1985). Vitaceae, the fifth largest vine family in the North American deserts were poorly represented in the Egyptian deserts but not known at all in Australian deserts. Australia has only about 34 species of the approximately 700 species of vitaveae found worldwide (Morley and Toelken, 1983), the family being considered Laurasian (Krings, 2000).
It has been reported that woody vines are increasing in dominance, relative in both tropical (Philips et al., 2002;Wright et al., 2004 andSwaine andGraace, 2007) and temperate forests (Allen et al, 2007). This pattern has been related to climate change (Malhi andWright, 2004, Vander et al., 2008). One of the global change drivers (Matesaazet al., 2010) but more comprisal evidence is needed. Schnitzer, (2005) reported that the abundance of woody vines in tropical forests is correlated negatively with precipitation and positively with seasonality. He further proposed that this pattern may be explained by the greater efficiency in water uptake and transport of woody climbers as compared to trees. Our study area is a wet, cold (Dorsch, 2003) where light availability is the major ecological factor affecting distribution and abundance of trees (Lusk et al., 2006, Lusk, 2002and Saldana of Lusk, 2003 but not woody vines (Gianoliet al., 2010, Carrasco et al.,(2009 in the temperate rainforest, where the potential evapotranspiration is very low, water availability is not a limiting factor and therefore water use features are was likely to determine plant distribution and abundance. From an applied perspective, the results of the present study suggest that the dominant climbers in the southern temperate rainforest could be able to cope with another global change driver, and use change if forest clearing occurs due to human activities.
Because climbers are present in so many ecosystems today, the morphological characteristics of the climber communities in disturbed versus stable, wetland versus well drained and open versus shaded forest ecosystems should help us recreate the distribution and importance of climbers in ecosystems throughout the last 30 million years. However, destruction of habitat through deforestation and over exploitation for commercial purposes and changes in cultural attitude threatens to constrain many of these climbers in to extinction.
Over exploitation of some climber species particularly collection of roots and underground parts from the climbers causes damage to these plants. Therefore, there are a people for the importance as well as conservation of these climbers in their original habitat. Climber abundance is dependent on climate and forest structure. Site with short or absent dry season have. We propose that a great heterogeneity of potential sites for climbers, thus also increasing, their richness. It is possible that sites with different dry season combined with tree heterogeneity can enhance the rates of climber speciation.