Community Diversity, Structure and Natural Regeneration of Trees in Tropical Forest: Effects of Human Disturbance

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Date
2012-10
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
The study was undertaken to determine community diversity, structure and natural regeneration of trees in tropical forest: effects of human disturbance at Terchire (Teekyere) in the Brong Ahafo Region of Ghana. Based on the intensity of human disturbance, the study area was stratified into three sites namely heavily disturbed forest (HDF), intermediately disturbed forest (IDF) and a reference forest (RF) to serve as a control. Data was collected between the months of November and December 2010. A total of 49 tree species belonging to 21 families and containing 532 individual adult trees were recorded in the three sites studied. Tree abundance was highest in the intermediately Disturbed forest (IDF) whiles Species richness was comparable to the IDF and the RF. Considering the high Tree abundance and species Riches in the IDF, it indicates that IDF can help maintain plant diversity. Though both the heavily disturbed forest and intermediately disturbed forests have experienced disturbance, the species richness of the former was similar to that of the Reference forest. This supports the intermediate disturbance hypothesis on species diversity. Species richness of both seedling and sapling also showed the same trend in the reference forest. The step-wise multiple regression analysis also revealed that the soil parameters analyzed showed high percentage of variation in the seedlings and saplings structure except for species richness that has very low percentage. Effective Cation Exchange capacity (ECEC) indicated the overall fertility of the soil which affects the structure of seedlings and saplings. From The study it is evident that different levels of human disturbance had varying effects on tree species, regenerating capacity, diversity, and structure.
Description
A Thesis Submitted to the Department of Environmental Science, Kwame Nkrumah University Of Science And Technology, Kumasi, Ghana, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Master Of Science Degree in Environmental Science
Keywords
Citation