| Peer-Reviewed

Patterns of the Diversity of Characteristic Species Across Vegetation Ecosystems of Ethiopia

Received: 27 April 2017     Accepted: 4 May 2017     Published: 27 May 2017
Views:       Downloads:
Abstract

Understanding plant species distribution across ecosystems is fundamental for designing conservation mechanisms at different ecological scales. Here, the aim of this study is to examine the pattern of plant species richness, unique/restricted, endemic and threatened species across eleven vegetation ecosystems of Ethiopia. The species data were compiled from the atlas of the potential vegetation of Ethiopia that describes the plant species by ecosystems and elevational gradients. Moreover, the data on threatened species was collated from the Red List Endemic Trees and Shrubs of Ethiopia and Eritrea. The comparative patterns of these different characteristic species were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Moreover, the relationship between the ecosystem characteristic species richness vs. species unique to each ecosystems; ecosystem characteristic species richness vs. species common to ecosystems; ecosystem characteristic species richness vs. species unique to each ecosystems and species unique to each ecosystems vs. endemic species richness across ecosystems was tested with Pearson’s correlation using R statistical program. The results showed that the Acacia-Commiphora woodland bushland ecosystem is comprised of the higher number of species (i.e., 37% of the total ecosystem characteristic species), while in contrast, the Afroalpine belt and Wooded grassland of the western Gambela region ecosystems had lower species richness (i.e., 1.4–1.5%) when compared with the other ecosystems. Dry evergreen Afromontane forest and grassland complex ecosystem is composed of the higher number of species that are common to the majority of other ecosystems, but Desert and semi-desert scrubland does not have any species which are common to other ecosystems. The number of ecosystem characteristic species, endemic and threatened species are higher in Acacia-Commiphora woodland bushland ecosystems and the majority are found in Euphorbiaceae and Fabaceae families. Moreover, the ecosystem characteristic species richness in general and of endemic in particular took hump-shaped pattern where the number of species was higher at “mid altitude”. These different patterns may indicate that conserving the whole system only at mega scale may not necessarily mean that the rare/unique, endemic and threatened species are conserved. Therefore, the overall results emphasize the importance of understanding the ecological processes in each ecosystem and the corresponding species specific properties to plan and design conservation system following either ecosystem approach or multiple spatial scales.

Published in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (Volume 2, Issue 3)
DOI 10.11648/j.eeb.20170203.11
Page(s) 34-44
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2017. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Altitudinal Gradient, Endemic Species, Hump-Shaped Pattern, Threatened Species, Vegetation Ecosystems

References
[1] Mereta, S. T., Boets, P. & Bayih, A. A. et al. 2012. Analysis of environmental factors determining the abundance and diversity of macroinvertebrate taxa in natural wetlands of Southwest Ethiopia. Ecological Informatics. 7: 52–61.
[2] Kouba, Y., Martínez-García, F., de Frutos, Á. & Alados, C. L. 2014. Plant β-diversity in human-altered forest ecosystems: the importance of the structural, spatial, and topographical characteristics of stands in patterning plant species assemblages. European Journal of Forest Research. 133: 1057–1072.
[3] Hylander, K. 2006. Riparian zones increase regional species richness by harboring different, not more, species : comment. Ecology. 87: 2126–2128.
[4] Baselga, A. 2010. Partitioning the turnover and nestedness components of beta diversity. Global Ecology and Biogeography. 19: 134–143.
[5] Gaston, K. J. 2000. Global patterns in biodiversity. Nature 405: 220–227.
[6] Scholtz, R. S., Iker, G. A. K. & Mit, I. P. J. S. 2014. Identifying drivers that influence the spatial distribution of woody vegetation in Kruger National Park, South Africa. Ecosphere. 5: 71 http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/ ES14-00034.1.
[7] Baselga, A. 2012. The relationship between species replacement, dissimilarity derived from nestedness, and nestedness. Global Ecology and Biogeography. 21: 1223–1232.
[8] Senbeta, F., Schmitt, C., Woldemariam, T., Boehmer, H. J., & Denich, M. 2014. Plant Diversity, Vegetation Structure and Relationship between Plant Communities and Environmental Variables in the Afromontane Forests of Ethiopia. SINET: Ethiopian Journal of Science 37: 113–130.
[9] Socolar JB, Gilroy JJ, Kunin WE. & Edwards, D. P. 2015. How should beta-diversity inform biodiversity conservation? Trends in Ecology and Evolution 31: 67–80.
[10] Soromessa, T., Teketay, D. & Demissew, S. 2004. Ecological study of the vegetation in Gamo Gofa Zone, southern Ethiopia. Journal of Tropical Ecology. 45: 209–221.
[11] Senbeta, F. & Teketay, D. 2002. Soil seedbank in plantations and adjacent natural dry Afromontane rainforests of central and southern Ethiopia. Journal of Tropical Ecology. 43: 229–242.
[12] Yineger, H., Kelbessa, E., Bekele, T. & Lulekal, E. 2008. Floristic composition and structure of the dry afromontane forest at bale mountains national park, Ethiopia. SINET: Ethiop Journal of Science. 31: 103–120.
[13] Didita, M., Nemomissa, S. & Woldemariam, T. 2010. Floristic and structural analysis of the woodland vegetation around. Journal of Forestry Research. 21: 395–408.
[14] Zegeye, H., Teketay, D. & Kelbessa, E. 2011. Diversity and regeneration status of woody species in Tara Gedam and Abebaye forests, northwestern Ethiopia. Journal of Forestry Research. 22: 315–328.
[15] Dalle, G. 2015. Floristic composition, population structure and conservation status of woody species in Shashemene-Munessa natural forest, Ethiopia. Ethiopian Journal of Biodiversity. 1: 21-44.
[16] Friis, I. 1992. Forests, and forest trees of northeast tropical Africa. Their natural habitats and distribution patterns in Ethiopia, Djibouti and Somalia. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Additional Series XV. HMSO, London.
[17] Friis, I., Demissew, S. & van Breugel, P. 2010. Atlas of the Potential Trees/shrubs of Ethiopia. Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selska, Specialtrykkeriet Viborg a-s, Copenhagen, Denmark.
[18] IBC. 2009. Ethiopia’s 4th Country Report to Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), November 2009, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
[19] Wondefrash, M. 2003. Wetlands, birds and important bird areas in Ethiopia. In: Proceedings of a seminar on the resources and status of Ethiopia’s wetlands, IUCN, PP. 25–36.
[20] Last, G. 2009. The geology and soils of Ethiopia and Eritrea. PP. 25-26. In: Ash, J &. Atkins, J. Birds of Ethiopia and Eritrea- an atlas of distribution. Christopher Helm, London.
[21] WCMC.1994. Biodiversity Data Sourcebook. World Conservation Monitoring Centre, World Conservation Press, Cambridge, UK.
[22] Hedberg, I., Friis, I. & Person, E. 2009. General Part and Index to Vol. 1-7. Flora of Ethiopia and Eritrea Volume 8. The National Herbarium, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and Uppsala, Sweden.
[23] IBC. 2012. The Sate of Forest Genetic Resource of Ethiopia. Country Report Submitted to FAO, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
[24] Bekele, M. 2011. Forest plantations and woodlots in Ethiopia: African Forest Forum, Nairobi, GPO Kenya.
[25] FRA. 2010. Global Forest Resources Assessment: Country Report, Ethiopia. FAO, Rome, Italy.
[26] Vivero J. L., Kelbessa, E. & Demissew, S. 2005. The Red List of Endemic trees and shrubs of Ethiopia and Eritrea. Fauna and Flora International, Cambridge printers, United Kingdom.
[27] R Development Core Team. 2016. R: A language and environment for Statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. ISBN 3-900051-07-0, URL http://www.R-project.org.
[28] Kessler, M. 2002. The elevational gradient of Andean plant endemism: varying influences of taxon- specific traits and topography at different taxonomic levels. Journal of Biogeography. 29: 1159–1165.
[29] Werff, H. V. A. N. D. E. R. & Consiglio, T. 2004. Distribution and conservation significance of endemic species of flowering plants in Peru, Biodiversity and Conservation, 13: 1699–1713.
[30] Austin, M. P. 1980. Searching for a model for use in vegetation analysis. Vegetatio. 42: 11–21. doi: 10.1007/BF00048865
[31] Berhanu, A., Woldu, Z. & Demissew, S. 2016. Elevation patterns of woody taxa richness in the evergreen Afromontane vegetation of Ethiopia. Journal of Forestry Research, http://doi.org/10.1007/s11676-016-0350-y
[32] Nogué, S., Rull, V. & Vegas-Vilarrúbia, T. 2013. Elevational gradients in the neotropical table mountains: patterns of endemism and implications for conservation. Diversity and Distributions. 19: 676–687. doi: 10.1111/ddi.12017
[33] Brown, J. H. & Lomolino, M. V. 1998. Biogeography (2nd edn). Courier Companies, Sunderland.
[34] Chust, G., Chave, J., Condit, R., Aguilar, S., Lao, S. & Pérez, R. 2006. Determinants and spatial modeling of tree beta-diversity in a tropical forest landscape in Panama. Journal of Vegetation Science. 17: 83–92.
[35] Legendre, P., Mi, X., Ren, H., Ma, K., Yu, M., Sun, I. F. & He, F. 2009. Partitioning beta diversity in a subtropical broad-leaved forest of China. Ecology. 90: 663–674.
[36] De Cáceres, M., Legendre, P., Valencia, R. & Cao, M. et al. 2012. The variation of tree beta diversity across a global network of forest plots. Global Ecology and Biogeography. 21: 1191–1202.
[37] Zhong-Hua, Z., Hu, G. & Ni, J. 2013. Effects of topographical and edaphic factors on the distribution of plant communities in two subtropical karst forests, southwestern China. Journal of Mountain Science. 10: 95–104.
[38] Huo, H., Feng, Q. & Su, Y. 2015. Shrub communities and environmental variables responsible for species distribution patterns in an alpine zone of the Qilian Mountains, northwest China. Journal of Mountain Science. 12: 166–176.
[39] Tscharntke, T., Tylianakis, J. M. & Rand, T. A. et al. 2012. Landscape moderation of biodiversity patterns and processes - eight hypotheses. Biological Reviews. 87, 661–685.
[40] Jost, L., Devries, P., Walla, T., Greeney, H., Chao, A. & Ricotta, C. 2010. Partitioning diversity for conservation analyses. Diversity and Distributions. 16: 65–76.
[41] Aerts, R., Spranghers, S. & Şekercioğlu, Çh. 2016. Conservation of ecosystem services does not secure the conservation of birds in a Peruvian shade coffee landscape. Bird Conservation International. 1–12. http://doi.org/10.1017/S0959270916000149.
Cite This Article
  • APA Style

    Debissa Lemessa, Yayehyirad Teka. (2017). Patterns of the Diversity of Characteristic Species Across Vegetation Ecosystems of Ethiopia. Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, 2(3), 34-44. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.eeb.20170203.11

    Copy | Download

    ACS Style

    Debissa Lemessa; Yayehyirad Teka. Patterns of the Diversity of Characteristic Species Across Vegetation Ecosystems of Ethiopia. Ecol. Evol. Biol. 2017, 2(3), 34-44. doi: 10.11648/j.eeb.20170203.11

    Copy | Download

    AMA Style

    Debissa Lemessa, Yayehyirad Teka. Patterns of the Diversity of Characteristic Species Across Vegetation Ecosystems of Ethiopia. Ecol Evol Biol. 2017;2(3):34-44. doi: 10.11648/j.eeb.20170203.11

    Copy | Download

  • @article{10.11648/j.eeb.20170203.11,
      author = {Debissa Lemessa and Yayehyirad Teka},
      title = {Patterns of the Diversity of Characteristic Species Across Vegetation Ecosystems of Ethiopia},
      journal = {Ecology and Evolutionary Biology},
      volume = {2},
      number = {3},
      pages = {34-44},
      doi = {10.11648/j.eeb.20170203.11},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.eeb.20170203.11},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.eeb.20170203.11},
      abstract = {Understanding plant species distribution across ecosystems is fundamental for designing conservation mechanisms at different ecological scales. Here, the aim of this study is to examine the pattern of plant species richness, unique/restricted, endemic and threatened species across eleven vegetation ecosystems of Ethiopia. The species data were compiled from the atlas of the potential vegetation of Ethiopia that describes the plant species by ecosystems and elevational gradients. Moreover, the data on threatened species was collated from the Red List Endemic Trees and Shrubs of Ethiopia and Eritrea. The comparative patterns of these different characteristic species were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Moreover, the relationship between the ecosystem characteristic species richness vs. species unique to each ecosystems; ecosystem characteristic species richness vs. species common to ecosystems; ecosystem characteristic species richness vs. species unique to each ecosystems and species unique to each ecosystems vs. endemic species richness across ecosystems was tested with Pearson’s correlation using R statistical program. The results showed that the Acacia-Commiphora woodland bushland ecosystem is comprised of the higher number of species (i.e., 37% of the total ecosystem characteristic species), while in contrast, the Afroalpine belt and Wooded grassland of the western Gambela region ecosystems had lower species richness (i.e., 1.4–1.5%) when compared with the other ecosystems. Dry evergreen Afromontane forest and grassland complex ecosystem is composed of the higher number of species that are common to the majority of other ecosystems, but Desert and semi-desert scrubland does not have any species which are common to other ecosystems. The number of ecosystem characteristic species, endemic and threatened species are higher in Acacia-Commiphora woodland bushland ecosystems and the majority are found in Euphorbiaceae and Fabaceae families. Moreover, the ecosystem characteristic species richness in general and of endemic in particular took hump-shaped pattern where the number of species was higher at “mid altitude”. These different patterns may indicate that conserving the whole system only at mega scale may not necessarily mean that the rare/unique, endemic and threatened species are conserved. Therefore, the overall results emphasize the importance of understanding the ecological processes in each ecosystem and the corresponding species specific properties to plan and design conservation system following either ecosystem approach or multiple spatial scales.},
     year = {2017}
    }
    

    Copy | Download

  • TY  - JOUR
    T1  - Patterns of the Diversity of Characteristic Species Across Vegetation Ecosystems of Ethiopia
    AU  - Debissa Lemessa
    AU  - Yayehyirad Teka
    Y1  - 2017/05/27
    PY  - 2017
    N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.eeb.20170203.11
    DO  - 10.11648/j.eeb.20170203.11
    T2  - Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
    JF  - Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
    JO  - Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
    SP  - 34
    EP  - 44
    PB  - Science Publishing Group
    SN  - 2575-3762
    UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.eeb.20170203.11
    AB  - Understanding plant species distribution across ecosystems is fundamental for designing conservation mechanisms at different ecological scales. Here, the aim of this study is to examine the pattern of plant species richness, unique/restricted, endemic and threatened species across eleven vegetation ecosystems of Ethiopia. The species data were compiled from the atlas of the potential vegetation of Ethiopia that describes the plant species by ecosystems and elevational gradients. Moreover, the data on threatened species was collated from the Red List Endemic Trees and Shrubs of Ethiopia and Eritrea. The comparative patterns of these different characteristic species were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Moreover, the relationship between the ecosystem characteristic species richness vs. species unique to each ecosystems; ecosystem characteristic species richness vs. species common to ecosystems; ecosystem characteristic species richness vs. species unique to each ecosystems and species unique to each ecosystems vs. endemic species richness across ecosystems was tested with Pearson’s correlation using R statistical program. The results showed that the Acacia-Commiphora woodland bushland ecosystem is comprised of the higher number of species (i.e., 37% of the total ecosystem characteristic species), while in contrast, the Afroalpine belt and Wooded grassland of the western Gambela region ecosystems had lower species richness (i.e., 1.4–1.5%) when compared with the other ecosystems. Dry evergreen Afromontane forest and grassland complex ecosystem is composed of the higher number of species that are common to the majority of other ecosystems, but Desert and semi-desert scrubland does not have any species which are common to other ecosystems. The number of ecosystem characteristic species, endemic and threatened species are higher in Acacia-Commiphora woodland bushland ecosystems and the majority are found in Euphorbiaceae and Fabaceae families. Moreover, the ecosystem characteristic species richness in general and of endemic in particular took hump-shaped pattern where the number of species was higher at “mid altitude”. These different patterns may indicate that conserving the whole system only at mega scale may not necessarily mean that the rare/unique, endemic and threatened species are conserved. Therefore, the overall results emphasize the importance of understanding the ecological processes in each ecosystem and the corresponding species specific properties to plan and design conservation system following either ecosystem approach or multiple spatial scales.
    VL  - 2
    IS  - 3
    ER  - 

    Copy | Download

Author Information
  • Forest and Range Land Plant Biodiversity Directorate, Ethiopian Biodiversity Institute, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

  • Forest and Range Land Plant Biodiversity Directorate, Ethiopian Biodiversity Institute, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

  • Sections