Title
The distribution and diversity of tree resources outside forest in southern side of Mount Kilimanjaro
Author(s)
Munishi, L.K.
Published
2007
Publisher
Discovery and Innovation
Abstract
Vegetation descriptions is an important pre-requesite in understanding the ecosystem changes and in assessing exploitation of important tree species by human beings. For sustainable management of tree resources, there is a necessity for scientific information on the species diversity and abundance that may be used to guide management of the species. The study used stratified random sampling method to determine the effects of distances to major river catchments and different land cover types on tree species density, richness and diversity outside the forest. During this study 255 sample plots were surveyed and within each plot, all trees whose Diameters at Breast Height (DBH) = 10 cmwere marked, enumerated, identified to species level and measured for DBH. In addition, dead stumps of sizes = 10 cm. DBHwere enumerated. A one-way ANOVA was performed to find significant (P = 0.05)differences between Mean Species Richness and Mean Shannon's Index in all land cover types and river distance strata. Fisher's Least Significant Difference (LSD) test was used to explore significant differences. In this study, there were three land cover types, which were considered as three different populations. These were, Annual cropping, Perennial cropping and Fallowing. The results showed that there were a total of 45 species belonging to 20 families and the commonest species was Grevillea robusta. The highest mean TROF density of about 6.5 was found in Perennial cropping whereas the lowest of about 0.3 was found in Fallowing. Variation in the mean species richness in Perennial and Annual cropping (6.3 and 5.5, respectively) were minimal compared to the big variation (mean richness of 1.1) observed in Fallowing. Land cover type was found to influence TROF species richness and densities. Contrary to the expectations of species richness and Shannon's index being highest near the major river catchments, the study did not find any such pattern. However, there was no significant difference in densities and Shannon's index of TROF in river strata as p-values in all cases exceeded the significant value of 0.05.
Keywords
Grevillea robusta; Kilimanjaro; Land cover; Population; River catchmenet; Shannon's index; Species richness
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PUB12154