Woody Vegetation Composition, Structure and Conservation Status of Gole Forest in Kamba Woreda, Gamo Gofa Zone, SNNPR, Ethiopia THESIS By Etalem Geresu May 2016 ARBA MINCH, ETHIOPIA Woody Vegetation Composition, Structure and Conservation Status of Gole Forest in Kamba Woreda, Gamo Gofa Zone, SNNPR, Ethiopia THESIS By Etalem Geresu Thesis Submitted to Department of Biology College of Natural Science School of Graduate Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Science in Biology (Botanical sciences) May, 2016 ARBA MINCH, ETHIOPIA ii ARBA MINCH UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES DEPARTEMENT OF BIOLOGY EXAMINERS APPROVAL PAGE This is to certify that the thesis entitled “Woody Vegetation Composition, Structure and `Conservation Status of Gole Forest in Kamba Woreda, Gamo Gofa Zone, SNNPR, Ethiopia‟‟ by Etalem Geresu in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master‟s science in with specialization in Botanical Sciences incorporate the rules and regulation of Arba Minch University and meet the accepted standard with respect to originality and quality. Name of chairperson Signature Date External Examiner Signature Date Internal Examiner Signature Date Principal advisor Signature Date i Declaration I hereby declare that this M.Sc. thesis is my original work and has not been presented for a degree in any other university, and all sources of material used for this thesis have been duly acknowledged. Name: Etalem Geresu Signature: _______________ Date: ___________________ ii Contents LIST OF TABLES .......................................................................................................................... v LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................................... vi LIST OF APPENDICES ............................................................................................................... vii LIST OF ACRONYMS ............................................................................................................... viii 1.INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................... 10 1.1 Background ............................................................................................................................. 10 1.2 Statement of the Problem ........................................................................................................ 12 1.3 Objectives of the study............................................................................................................ 12 1.3.1 General objective ........................................................................................................... 12 1.3.2 Specific objectives ......................................................................................................... 12 2. LITERATURE REVIEW ......................................................................................................... 13 2.1 Floristic diversity and Conservation ..................................................................................... 13 2.2 Vegetation of Ethiopia ............................................................................................................ 13 2.2.1 Moist Evergreen Montane Forest................................................................................... 15 2.3 Plant Community Types ........................................................................................................ 15 2.3.1 Species Diversity, Species Richness, Evenness and Similarity ..................................... 16 2.3.2 Abundance and Frequency ............................................................................................ 18 2.3.3 Species Importance Value Index (SIV) and Dominance ............................................... 18 2.4 Vegetation Patterns and Some Environmental Variables ....................................................... 18 2.5 Roles of Biodiversity and Threats in Ethiopia ........................................................................ 20 2.6 Community Based Forest Management .................................................................................. 21 3 MATERIALS AND METHODS ............................................................................................... 22 3.1 Description of the Study Area ................................................................................................. 22 3.1.1 Location ......................................................................................................................... 22 3.1.2 Climate and Agro-Ecology ............................................................................................ 23 3.1.3 Land Use Categories ...................................................................................................... 24 3.1.4 Livelihood Strategies ................................................................................................... 24 3.1.5 Vegetation ...................................................................................................................... 25 iii 3.1.6 Population ...................................................................................................................... 25 3.2 Sampling Design ..................................................................................................................... 26 3.3 Vegetation Structure Data Collection ..................................................................................... 26 3.4 Environmental Data Collection............................................................................................... 27 3.5 Socio-economic Data Collection ............................................................................................ 27 3.6 Data Analysis .......................................................................................................................... 27 3.6.1 Vegetation Structure Data analysis ................................................................................ 27 3.6.2 Plant community Analysis ............................................................................................. 28 3.6.3 Species Diversity Analysis ............................................................................................ 28 3.7 Environmental Data Analysis ................................................................................................. 29 3.8 Socio-economic Data Analysis ............................................................................................... 29 4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ............................................................................................... 29 4.1 Species Composition of the Forest ......................................................................................... 31 4.2 Vegetation Structure ............................................................................................................... 33 4.2.1 Density ........................................................................................................................... 33 4.2.2 Height distribution ......................................................................................................... 33 4.2.3 Dimeter at breast height(DBH) ...................................................................................... 37 4.3 Vegetation Classification ........................................................................................................ 41 4.4 Species Diversity, Evenness and Richness of the Plant Communities ................................... 45 4.5 Similarity among Plant Community Types............................................................................. 45 4.6 Environmental Variables and Plant Community Relationship ............................................... 46 4.7 Correlation among Environmental Factors ............................................................................. 46 4.8 Importance Value Index (IVI) ................................................................................................ 47 4.9 Regeneration Status of Gole Forest ........................................................................................ 50 4.10 Consrvation states of Gole Forest ........................................................................................ 52 5. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ................................................................... 54 5.1 Conclusions ............................................................................................................................. 54 5.2 Recommendations ................................................................................................................... 55 6. REFERENCES ......................................................................................................................... 56 iv LIST OF TABLES Table 1 Land-use in the study area…………………………………………………………… .. 24 Table 2: Families with their representative genera, species and their percentage contribution…311 Table 3: Density, number of woody species and ratio of individuals to species………… ….... 37 Table 4: Lists of mean cover abundance value of woody species in the community types…… 44 Table 5: Shannon-Wiener Diversity Index, Evenness and species richness of plant community types…………… …………………………………………………………………………. 44 Table 6: Sorensen similarity coefficient among community types…………………………… 45 Table 7: Mean value