Abstract
<title>Abstract</title> <p>Natural regeneration is considered as the cheapest and easiest way of regeneration which contributes maintaining ecological balance and biodiversity conservation. Understanding the dynamics of natural regeneration is crucial for predicting future vegetation development and maintaining forest ecosystem stability. This study evaluated the natural regeneration status and the influence of selected habitat factors in Tilaghor Eco Park that will contribute to investigate the resilience capability of the park and provide guidelines to decision makers to prioritize the conservation strategies. A total of 100 (2mx2m) regeneration plots were studied to elucidate the regeneration condition of the site and analyzed the effects of site factors on them. In those plots, we found 314 trees, 102 saplings, and 934 seedlings of 22 individual species. Dipterocarpus turbinatus (Garjan) was the most dominant and abundant among tree and seedling species whereas Calamus longisetus (Bet) was the most dominant among sapling species. We applied Non-metric Multi-dimensional Scaling (NMDS) and Generalized Linear Model (GLM) to understand the community complexity and specific effect of ecological factors on regeneration, respectively. Our study concluded with the correlation between seedling richness and seedling abundance with 10 selected habitat factors. Among all, tree height and tree richness were significantly correlated with seedling richness and seedling abundance in accordance to the NMDS ordination. The other factors namely elevation, basal area, canopy coverage, canopy height, tree abundance, sapling richness, sapling abundance, sapling average height had no significance with the seedling richness and abundance. The GLM analysis represented that tree and sapling richness and abundance were significantly influenced by the seedling richness where elevation, tree diameter and basal area were influenced the seedling abundance. The study was carried out on the important aspects that will assist the plantation initiatives to decide on an area-specific plantation on indigenous species preference.</p>