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Diversity and occurrence of herbaceous communities in West African savannas in relation to climate, land use and habitat

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Abstract

In the face of the current changes in land use and climate as well as habitat destruction, it is important to study herbaceous vegetation as an indicator of changes occurring in savanna ecosystems. We investigated the effects of climate, land use and habitat, both alone and in combination, on the diversity and occurrence of West African savanna herbaceous plant communities. Floristic data and environmental variables were sampled in Burkina Faso and subjected to ordination and indicator species analysis to explore the variation in nine vegetation types. Regression analyses showed that climate, land use, humidity gradient, soil fraction and vegetation structure discriminate herbaceous plant communities. Climate, habitat and their interaction had the greatest effect on the occurrence of these communities. Changes in species richness of the studied communities were mainly due to climate, land use and their interaction, which were more important for increasing rather than decreasing diversity. In all cases, climate conditions remained the most important environmental factor driving vegetation variation in West African savannas. Beside this, the effects of habitat degradation in interaction with land use and climatic conditions indicate land use to be a threat for the diversity of the herbaceous vegetation.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the DFG (German Research Foundation, BE 4143/2-1, and HA 6789/1-1) and the Ministry of Secondary and Higher Education of Burkina Faso (MESS and CIOSPB) for financial support. We also thank the Ministry of Environment, Green Economy and Climate Change, which permitted access to protected areas, as well as our field assistant for her help during the sampling phase. The experiments complied with the current laws of the country in which they were performed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Plant Biology and Ecology, University Ouaga I Pr Joseph Ki-Zerbo, Ouagadougou 03, 03 BP 7021, Burkina Faso

    Issouf Zerbo, Oumarou Ouédraogo & Adjima Thiombiano

  2. Institute of Ecology, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Dornburger Strasse 159, 07743, Jena, Germany

    Markus Bernhardt-Römermann

  3. Department of Ecology and Geobotany, Institute for Ecology, Evolution and Diversity, J. W. Goethe University, Max-von-Laue-Strasse 13, 60438, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

    Karen Hahn

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  1. Issouf Zerbo
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Correspondence to Issouf Zerbo.

Appendices

Appendices

Table 6 Full synoptic table of herbaceous plant communities in West African savannas (Legend: IV– indicator value; Fr – relative frequency)
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Table 7 Soil parameters of herbaceous plant communities
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Table 8 Structures of herbaceous plant communities
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Table 9 Occurrence [%] of herbaceous plant communities under climate, land use and habitats conditions
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Table 10 Diversity indices of herbaceous plant communities
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Zerbo, I., Bernhardt-Römermann, M., Ouédraogo, O. et al. Diversity and occurrence of herbaceous communities in West African savannas in relation to climate, land use and habitat. Folia Geobot 53, 17–39 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12224-017-9303-2

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