Wetland Vegetation Composition and Ecology of Abaya and Chamo in Southern and Fincha’aChomen and Dabus in Western Ethiopia

Dikaso, Unbushe Gojamme (2013) Wetland Vegetation Composition and Ecology of Abaya and Chamo in Southern and Fincha’aChomen and Dabus in Western Ethiopia. PhD thesis, Addis Ababa University.

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Abstract

Wetland Vegetations of Chamo and Abaya Lakes in the southern and Fincha’a-Chomen and Dabus marshes in western Ethiopia were studied to determine floristic composition, vegetation ecology, plant community types and to identify environmental factors significantly influencing the distribution of plant species and community types. A total of 339 relevés were laid along transects that were set up preferentially across areas where there were rapid changes in vegetation or marked environmental gradients to collect data on estimate of percentage aerial cover of plant species and environmental variables. A total of 302 plant species belonging to 194 genera and 72 families were identified. The most dominant families in all the sites were Asteraceae, Poaceae, Cyperaceae and Fabaceae. Multivariate data analyses were performed using appropriate packages in R version 2.14.0. Vegetation data were analyzed by agglomerative hierarchical cluster analysis using similarity ratio as a resemblance index and Ward’s linkage method. Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA) was used to explore the relationship between the species composition and environmental variables. The environmental data to be included in the CCA were determined using stepwise backward and forward selection of variables by ANOVA test. Statistical measurement regarding species diversity, richness and evenness of the plant community types was carried out by using Shannon-Wiener (1949) diversity indices. Sample-based rarefaction curves were computed in the program EstimateS (Colwell, 2005) to estimate and compare species richness across sites of different sizes. Comparison of the floristic diversity of the wetlands showed that Dabus marsh had the highest alpha diversity. From all the study sites, relatively the highest number of plant community types was recorded from wetlands of Lake Abaya during both seasons. The most important factors influencing the plant species composition and pattern of wetland plant communities were drainage, water depth, land use, slope, altitude and hydrogeomorphology (in wetlands of Lake Abaya) and water depth, disturbance and hydrogeomorphology (in wetlands of Lake Chamo). All of the measured factors had significant role in Dabus and Fincha’a-Chomen marshes. Therefore, these should be considered in future management and protection under the circumstance of climate change and human activities.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Subjects:	Q Science > Q Science (General) Q Science > QH Natural history > QH301 Biology Q Science > QK Botany
Divisions:	Africana
Depositing User:	Selom Ghislain
Date Deposited:	28 Jun 2018 09:17
Last Modified:	28 Jun 2018 09:17
URI:	http://thesisbank.jhia.ac.ke/id/eprint/5999

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