Tree species diversity of three Ghanaian reserves

doi:10.3832/ifor2056-010

Tree species diversity of three Ghanaian reserves

Roberto Cazzolla Gatti⁽¹⁾ , Gaia Vaglio Laurin^(2-3), Riccardo Valentini^(2-3)

iForest - Biogeosciences and Forestry, Volume 10, Issue 2, Pages 362-368 (2017)
doi: https://doi.org/10.3832/ifor2056-010
Published: Mar 07, 2017 - Copyright © 2017 SISEF

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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.

Keywords

Ghana, Protected Areas, Forests, Database

Authors’ address

(1)

Biological Diversity and Ecology Laboratory, Bio-Clim-Land Centre of Excellence, Tomsk State University (TSU), 36 Lenin Prospekt, Tomsk, 634050 (Russia)

(2)

Impacts of Agriculture, Forests and Ecosystem Services Division, Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (IAFES-CMCC), v. Pacinotti 5, I-01100 Viterbo (Italy)

(3)

Department for Innovation in Biological, Agro-Food and Forest Systems (DIBAF), University of Tuscia, I-01100 Viterbo (Italy)

Corresponding author

Roberto Cazzolla Gatti
robertocgatti@gmail.com

Citation

Cazzolla Gatti R, Vaglio Laurin G, Valentini R (2017). Tree species diversity of three Ghanaian reserves. iForest 10: 362-368. - doi: 10.3832/ifor2056-010

Academic Editor

Marco Ferretti

Paper history

Received: Mar 14, 2016
Accepted: Jan 03, 2017

First online: Mar 07, 2017
Publication Date: Apr 30, 2017
Publication Time: 2.10 months

Open Access

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

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