International Journal of Pure & Applied Bioscience (IJPAB)
Year : 2015, Volume : 3, Issue : 6
First page : (26) Last page : (33)
Article doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.18782/2320-7051.2167
A comparative study on indigenous and exotic woody vegetation of three different church forest ecosystems in Gondar, Ethiopia
Subramanian Chandrodyam* and Mengesha Asefa
Post Box 196, Department of Biology, College of Natural and Computational Sciences, University of Gondar, Ethiopia
*Corresponding Author E-mail: wlbsasu@gmail.com
Abstract
This study was confined to three Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church (EOTC) forests in Gondar namely; Saint Michael (SMC), Queskum (QUC) and Debrebrhan Selassea (DSC). They are located in South west, West and North east directions from center of the city respectively. Information was gathered on woody vegetation characteristics from study plots with the objective of comparing indigenous and exotic woody species stand density (DS), stand basal area (BAS), importance value index (IVI) and species diversity (H’). A total of 35 woody species (seven IUCN red listed) belong to 23 families were recorded. Among the records, 25 were indigenous (one endemic) and 10 exotics. DSC contains 31 species (maximum) belonging to 19 families and overall highest DS was recorded from same site followed by QUC which contains 24 species belonging to 18 families and lowest from SMC (22 species from 16 families). Higher H’ was recorded from QUC and lower in SMC. The Jaccard’s species similarity index (SJ) calculation shows maximum species similarity among overall and indigenous categories between QUC and DSC and it was highest for exotics between SMC and DSC. The stand characteristics followed different patterns of variations in DS, BAS, IVI, richness (S), H’ and evenness (H’E). An analysis of variance showed that species and its density and basal area and IVI significantly differ between and within groups (p < 0.001). A significant difference was found (p ≤ 0.005) between species category (indigenous and exotics) and basal area and it was insignificant between species category and density (p ≥ 0.05).
Key words: Basal area, Church forest ecosystems, Density, Diversity, Importance value index.
Full Text : PDF; Journal doi : http://dx.doi.org/10.18782
Cite this article: Subramanian, C. and Mengesha, A., A comparative study on indigenous and exotic woody vegetation of three different church forest ecosystems in Gondar, Ethiopia, Int. J. Pure App. Biosci. 3 (6): 26-33 (2015). doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.18782/2320-7051.2167
