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Centres of endemism have been much studied by biogeographers, ecologists, and evolutionary theorists, and are considered conservation priorities. It is therefore important to understand the ecological traits of restricted range taxa, and the landscape-scale drivers of high endemism. Here, we investigate correlates of floristic endemism within two of west Africa’s forest biodiversity hotspots at local scale. We assembled distribution data for 1,042 vascular plant taxa from 114 sample locations within forest reserves of south west Ghana, and for 1,735 vascular plant taxa from 454 sample locations within the Nimba Mountains (Liberia and Guinea). A quantitative index of global endemism called the Genetic Heat Index was modelled linearly. We tested the significance of modern climate, altitude and disturbance as factors predicting endemism rates in these two forest reserves. Annual rainfall was significantly and positively related to endemism rates in both south west Ghana and the Nimba Mountains. Altitude was a significant predictor of endemism rates in the Nimba Mountains, with a quadratic relationship highlighting particularly high endemism over 1,000 m. Local topography rather than altitude was a significant predictor or endemism in SW Ghana, where altitude varies less. Areas of high rainfall and high altitude are geographically restricted across the western African forests, acting as edaphic islands driving spatial isolation. Disturbed vegetation samples had lower endemism rates than undisturbed samples in both Nimba and SW Ghana, and overall pioneer species had wider areas of occupancy than shade-bearing species. Endemism rates increased slightly with each year following clearance. Disturbance thus creates and maintains vegetation types which support a lower proportion of globally rare species in the two biodiversity hotspots surveyed. From the point of view of the conservation of globally rare plants, it is important to keep additional disturbance in the south west Ghana hotspot, particularly Ankasa, to a minimum, as is the current practice, and in the Nimba mountains to establish community forests which may be left relatively undisturbed amid farming and mining activities.

At best, conservation decisions can only be made using the data available at the time.For plants and especially in the tropics, natural history collections remain the best available baseline information upon which to base conservation assessments, in spite of well-documented limitations in their taxonomic, geographic, and temporal coverage. We explore the extent to which changes to the plant biological record over 20 years have changed our conception of the conservation importance of 931 plant taxa, and 114 vegetation samples, recorded in forest reserves of the southwest Ghana biodiversity hotspot. 36% of species-level assessments changed as a result of new distribution data. 12% of species accepted in 2016 had no assessment in 1996: of those, 20% are new species publications, 60% are new records for SW Ghana, and 20% are taxonomic resolutions. Apparent species ranges have increased over time as new records are made, but new species publications are overwhelmingly of globally rare species, keeping the balance of perceived rarity in the flora constant over 20 years. Thus, in spite of considerable flux at the species record level, range size rarity scores calculated for 114 vegetation samples of the reserves in 1996 and 2016 are highly correlated with each other: r(112) = 0.84, p < .0005, and showed no difference in mean score over 20 years: paired t(113) = −0.482, p = .631. This consistency in results at the area level allows for worthwhile conservation priority setting over time, and we argue is the better course of action than taking no action at all.

Background: Malaria is an infectious disease that is spread through the bite of female anopheles mosquito resulting in the death of hundreds of thousands of people per year. Medicinal plants provide crude extracts and purified compounds for malaria treatment. Annickia polycarpa is one of such plants whose bark is used for this purpose. However, the antimalaria effect of its leaf is not known. We hereby report the investigation of antimalaria effect of A. polycarpa leaf. Methods: Antimalaria effect of the ethanol extract of A. polycarpa leaf (APLE) was investigated in P. berghei infested ICR mice in the Peter’s test. The effect of the extract on development and chemo-suppression of hyperparasitemia, reduction in body weight and mean survival time were evaluated. Full blood count analysis on the infected mice were performed to determine the effect of treatment with APLE on hematological indices such as red and white blood cells and platelets. Acute toxicity and phytochemical tests of the extract were also performed. Results: APLE administered orally at 50, 200 and 400 mg/kg produced profound dose-dependent chemo-suppressive effect of 89.37 – 95.50 % of P. berghei after 4 consecutive days of treatment which compares with 86.22 % obtained for Quinine 30 mg/kg i.m. under the same regimen. APLE also protected the mice against reduction in body weight associated with malaria which was P < 0.05 at 50 mg/kg. Furthermore, APLE promoted dose-dependent mean survival time in the Kaplan-Meier curve. Only 25.0 % of mice in the negative control group survived after 30 days compared to 100 % survival for mice in APLE 400 mg/kg and Quinine 30 mg/kg groups. The results from the full blood count shows that APLE caused (P < 0.05) dose dependent increase in RBC, HGB, HCT, WBCs, lymphocytes and platelets. The LD50 of APLE was above 5000 mg/kg p.o. Conclusions: APLE showed profound antimalaria effect with very high margin of safety. Hematological alterations that resulted from treatment of with APLE indicate significant improvement in general health and safe recovery from the parasitic attack. These findings show that the leaf of A. polycarpa can also be used to treat malaria.