Floristic Inventory of Woody Species in the Manengouba Mountain Forest, Cameroon
The limit of the guinea-Congolese and Afro highlander regions is situated between 1800-2200 m (Letouzey, 1985). One notes that the Cameroonian mountains, with the specific example of mount Manengouba (2396 m), form an archipelago connected comfortably (in the floristic point of view), to the other archipelago highlanders of oriental Africa and southern Africa (White, 1983). All these archipelagos include preferential taxa, to the echelon of the family or the species.
Many works on the structure and biodiversity have been achieved in forests of low and middle altitudes in African, Malagasy and Neotropical regions (Villanueva, 1991; Spichiger et al., 1992, 1996; Lejoly, 1995; Rabevohitra et al., 1996; Sonke, 1998; Collin, 1998; Rakotomalaza and Messmer, 1999; D’Amigo and Gautier, 2000; Senterre et al., 2004; Senterre, 2005). They enabled the circumscription of quantitative values for the families and the species of these types of forest. The mountain forests haven’t had such investigations conducted according to similar methodologies. Will the characteristic values of the structure and diversity parameters determined in the mountain Manengouba forest permit establishment of differences between her and the forests of low and medium African, Malagasy and neotropical altitudes, or to unite them in the same wholes?
This survey was done on the Manengouba mount, towards the side of Mbouroukou, at 2000-2200 m of altitude. Vegetation is disrupted by the surrounding populations. The stem barks of Prunus africana are removed for example regularly for medicinal uses, an inconvinence that drags many precocious trees and bushes to mortality. The herds of beef (of the Bororos) that graze in the highlander prairie disrupt vegetation by their stampings. The species introduced (Persea americana for example) integrate to the autochthonous flora. This human activity also orders this survey, before a more advanced disruption.
Aims and objectives: The present study was aimed to make a sampling of the Manengouba forest by summaries of plots, taking into account the trees in DBH (Diameter at Breast Height) > 10 cm, to establish their structural and diversity parameters quantitatively, and to characterize the Manengouba forest in relation with the data (already established) of the low and medium altitude forests.
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(Author: Emmanuel Noumi
Published by Macrothink Institute)