TY  - JOUR
A1  - Zerbo, Issouf
A1  - Bernhardt-Römermann, Markus
A1  - Ouedraogo, Oumarou
A1  - Hahn-Hadjali, Karen
A1  - Thiombiano, Adjima
T1  - Effects of climate and land use on herbaceous species richness and vegetation composition in west african savanna ecosystems
T2  - Journal of botany
N2  - West African Savanna ecosystems are undergoing severe changes in their vegetation composition due to the impact of human land use and changes in climatic conditions. This study aims to examine the effect of climate, land use, and their interaction on species richness and composition of West African herbaceous vegetation. Plot based vegetation sampling was done in Burkina Faso. Specific richness and diversity indices were used to determine the effect of land use, climate, and their interaction. An importance value was computed to determine herbaceous species dominating the communities. Frequency of species is used to examine their distribution pattern. The results showed that climate significantly influenced herbaceous specific richness more than land use. However, land use had a significant effect on herbaceous vegetation composition. Herbaceous species diversity changed with environmental conditions. The floristic composition of dominant species is driven by both climate and land use. The frequency of distribution demonstrated that herbaceous species occurrences were more influenced by the mixed effect of climate and land use than their separate effects. Occasional and rare species are the most important part of herbaceous vegetation. Thus heterogeneity of Savanna ecosystem and vulnerability of herbaceous species are high.
Y1  - 2016
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/50657
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-506576
SN  - 2090-0139
SN  - 2090-0120
N1  - Copyright © 2016 Issouf Zerbo et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
VL  - 2016
IS  - Art. 9523685
SP  - 1
EP  - 11
PB  - Hindawi
CY  - Cairo [u. a.]
ER  -