Diversity and community composition of herbaceous plants in different habitat types in south‐east Cameroon

Abstract

The composition of herbaceous vegetation was evaluated with the aim of characterizing forests at various ages of stand development. Herb stems were sampled in 250 4-m² square plots distributed within six habitat types. A total of 36 herb species belonging to 15 families were recorded. Species richness did not significantly differ between habitat types. Most herb species occurred in all habitat types and were therefore generalists. However, a few indicator herb species were detected, and the results roughly suggested that herb species of the families Poaceae and Araceae were indicative of late successional forests; Zingiberaceae are indicative of early successional forests; and Commelinaceae, Costaceae, Cyperaceae and Marantaceae are indicators of flooded habitats. Species diversity and stem density of herbaceous plants did not change with forest succession as a decrease in abundance and frequency of occurrence of pioneer species in late successional forests was counterbalanced by the presence of generalist and late successional species. However, increasing proportions of dwarf stems in late successional forests translated to changes in the vertical structure of herbaceous plant communities. Herbivory pressure by gorillas did not have a notable effect on herbaceous plant community development. This study contributes to the definition of herbaceous ecological indicators of forest succession in different settings.R esum e: La composition de la v eg etation herbeuse a et e evalu ee afin de caract eriser les diff erents stades de d eveloppement des forêts. Nous avons collect e les pousses d'herbes dans 250 parcelles de 4 m² r eparties dans six types d'habitats. Nous avons enregistr e un total de 36 esp eces d'herbes appartenant a 15 familles. La richesse en esp eces ne diff erait pas significativement selon les types d'habitats. La plupart des esp eces d'herbes se trouvaient dans tous les types d'habitats et etaient donc g en eralistes, mais nous avons d etect e quelques esp eces indicatrices, et nos r esultats sugg erent, en gros, que les herbes des familles des Poaceae et des Araceae indiquent des forêts en fin de cycle de succession, que les Zingiberaceae indiquent des forêts en d ebut de cycle, et que les Commelinaceae, Costaceae, Cyperaceae et Marantaceae sont le signe d'habitats inond es. La diversit e d'esp eces et la densit e de pousses de plantes herbac ees ne changeaient pas avec la succession des stades forestiers parce que la diminution de l'abondance et de la fr equence d'occurrence des esp eces pionni eres dans les forêts plus anciennes etait compens ee par la pr esence d'esp eces g en eralistes et/ou caract eristiques de stades post erieurs. Cependant, de plus fortes proportions de

Potential of biological invasion for carbon sequestration in a protected area : the case of the Limbe Botanic Garden (LBG) forest, Cameroon

“…We noted information such as the number of adult and juvenile individuals. The species nomenclature is consistent with the different oras of Africa and Cameroon (Sosef et al, 2017 ;Willie et al, 2018 ;Qian, 2019). The Shannon-Weaver diversity index was used to measure the average amount of information given by the species indication of an individual in the collection.…”

Potential of biological invasion for carbon sequestration in a protected area: the case of the Limbe Botanic Garden (LBG) forest, Cameroon

“…The species nomenclature is consistent with the different floras of Africa and Cameroon. [16][17][18] The Shannon-Weaver diversity index was used to measure the average amount of information given by the species indication of an individual in the collection. This average was calculated from the proportions of species found.…”

Keanekaragaman Jenis Vegetasi Strata Herba di Bukit Gatan Kabupaten Musi Rawas

“…Faktor lingkungan sangat berpengaruh terhadap sturktur dan komposisi vegetasi (Willie et al, 2017;Gömez-Dıáz et al, 2017). Termasuk tipe habitat (Willie et al, 2017), dan ketinggian tempat (Willie et al, 2017). Ketinggian lokasi berpengaruh terhadap suhu dan kelembaban, sehingga secara langsung maupun tidak langsung mempengaruhi struktur vegetasi, termasuk kelompok tumbuhan herba.…”

“…Secara keseluruhan, keberadaan tumbuhan herba dalam suatu kawasan berpengaruh terhadap perkembangan stand keragaman hayati (Willie et al, 2017;Gömez-Dıáz et al, 2017). Tumbuhan herba memiliki manfaat yang beragam (Thuppil et al, 2014), termasuk sumber pangan dan obat-obatan (Zhou et al, 2018), hingga berfungsi secara ekologi dalam kemapanan komunitas hutan (dos Santos-Junior et al, 2017).…”