Tree species diversity of three Ghanaian reserves

Abstract

(2-3)Among tropical areas, Africa is considered to be poor in terms of biodiversity as compared with Amazon or South-East Asia, especially with respect to forest diversity. Despite this lower diversity, some African tropical zones, such as Ghana, harbour a plethora of species, particularly of trees. Unfortunately, as a result of anthropogenic impacts, biological diversity in West Africa dramatically decreased in the last decades, with very limited reference to evaluate the amount of the loss. Due to these growing pressure, a collection of relevant biodiversity information in this region seems to be urgent. We surveyed 127 temporary plots randomly distributed within 3 protected areas in Ghana and we collected data on tree (dbh>10 cm) species richness and their abundances. We also performed α, and β diversity analyses, and estimated the effective number of species, adopting various indices and approaches to provide further information on each assemblage. The main goals of this research were: (i) to provide a wide tree species database (abundance-based data), together with some biodiversity analyses; (ii) to estimate the sampling effort needed for next biodiversity surveys in the same and similar regions; and (iii) to calculate some indices useful to monitor the future of these protected areas both in terms of conservation and biodiversity research.

The last 50 years of climate‐induced melting of the Maliy Aktru glacier (Altai Mountains, Russia) revealed in a primary ecological succession

“…The analysis of the α-diversity confirmed an expected increase in plant diversity along the primary ecological succession with increasing distance from the glacier forefront. The values reached at the sampling limit of 600 m by both Shannon and Simpson indices are indicators of a community that composed by an intermediate level of diversity (Cazzolla Gatti, Vaglio Laurin, & Valentini, 2017;Magurran, 2007;Messina et al, 2016). In fact, the approximation derived from the Chao 1 index, as a proxy of the true diversity the studied community could reach the climax stage of the succession, shows that 144.…”

“…The values reached at the sampling limit of 600 m by both Shannon and Simpson indices are indicators of a community that composed by an intermediate level of diversity (Cazzolla Gatti, Vaglio Laurin, & Valentini, 2017; Magurran, 2007; Messina et al., 2016). In fact, the approximation derived from the Chao 1 index, as a proxy of the true diversity the studied community could reach the climax stage of the succession, shows that 144.47 ± 25.93 (i.e., 118–170) species could represent the “effective” number of species.…”

Plant Diversity and Regeneration Potentials in Protected Area Forests of Sierra Leone

“…In the sub-region, Aigbe, et al [68] reported Shannon values of 3.827 and 3.795 for plants in two forest reserves in Nigeria. Appiah [60] recorded a mean Shannon index of 4.52 for the plants in different forest PAs, while Gatti, et al [66] recorded Shannon values of 4.23; 4.26 and 4.35 for the plants in three different forests PAs in Ghana. The plant diversity in the forest PAs in Sierra Leone is generally low as compared to countries with similar vegetation in the subcontinent.…”

“…Our findings were similar with the result of Bendu[58] who recorded Guibouria copallifera(45) as the dominant species in Kasewe forest; Fayiah, et al[63] also recorded Nosogodonia papaverifera and Guibourtia copallifera as the dominant species in Kambui forest eastern Sierra Leone.Similarly, Mattia, et al[64] and Bangura[65] recorded Octhnocosmus africanus and Nosogordonia papaverifera as the dominant species within Moyamba District in Southern Sierra Leone. The absolute dominance of a single species in any given forest showed the attribute of lesser diversity[60,66].…”

Habitat and ecological diversity influences the species-area relationship and the biogeography of the Sicilian archipelago’s isopods

“…SAR is one of the best-known and most-studied correlations in ecology (Tjørve & Turner 2009). Measuring how the number of observed species increases upon enlarging the sampled area constitutes a convenient tool to quantify the spatial structure of biodiversity (Messina et al 2016a;Cazzolla Gatti 2017;Cazzolla Gatti et al 2017b;Cazzolla Gatti & Notarnicola 2018). Moreover, SAR is an important means to understand the distribution of biological diversity and to predict species extinction (Matthews et al 2014).…”