DOI: 10.36347/sajb.2015.v03i09.005

Pages: 752-761

Various species diversity indices were estimated based on the survey carried out in the home gardens of two villages located one in rural area (Arumanalloor) near Nagercoil and another urban area (Konam) in town municipality of Nagercoil, Kanyakumari District, Tamil Nadu, India. In the study area, 128 home gardens (of which 66 were rural HGs and 62 were urban HGs, categorized into –hutted, tiled, terraced, storied, fenced and non-fenced) were surveyed for enumeration of available plants. The overall HG area surveyed in both rural and urban HGs was 17209.88m2 (1.72ha.) with an average HG area of 134.45m2 (0.013ha). The number of species recorded in the HGs was 89 species belongs to 45 families comprises 80 genus. The higher indices of HG plants for rural and urban study area were determined as follows: Higher values of Shannon-Weiner’s Species Diversity index (H’=4.079), Pielou’s Index of Species Evenness (E=0.91), and Margalef Index for Species Richness (R=10.80), were noted in rural HGs than the urban HGs, but the Simpson’s dominance index value (λ=0.045) was low. About 88.05% of Sorenson’s species similarity index and 11.5% dissimilarity index (Ds) was noted between the rural and urban HGs species. The HG plants were grouped into different categories such as life forms, earthen/potted plants, cultivated/wild pants, useful parts and uses. Among the HG plant categories, the cultivated pants shows more species diversity, species evenness, species richness in overall HGs followed by rural HGs, but the Simpson’s dominant index was recorded more in the cultivated plants of urban HGs.