Wildfires cause shifts in liana community structure and liana-soil relationships in a moist semi-deciduous forest in Gha
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Wildfires cause shifts in liana community structure and liana-soil relationships in a moist semi-deciduous forest in Ghana P. Addo-Fordjour & F. Kadan & Zakaria B. Rahmad & D. Fosu & B. Ofosu-Bamfo
Received: 26 April 2020 / Revised: 14 September 2020 / Accepted: 27 October 2020 # Institute of Botany, Czech Academy of Sciences 2020
Abstract Lianas play significant ecological roles in tropical forest ecosystems, so knowledge of the factors that affect them is key to forest management. Nonetheless, there is limited information on how wildfires influence liana communities. This study therefore sought to determine the effects of wildfires on liana community structure and liana–soil associations in the Asenanyo Forest Reserve, Ghana. Thirty plots (20 × 20 m) were established in each of three forest stands (9-month-old burnt, 15-year-old burnt, unburnt) and sampled for lianas (diameter at 1.3 m from the rooting base ≥ 1 cm). Liana diversity, abundance and basal area were significantly lower in the two burnt forest stands. The 15-yearold burnt forest supported significantly higher values for these liana community attributes than the 9-month-old forest. There was a shift in liana species composition towards a more homogenized composition in the burnt forest. Liana–soil associations differed between the unburnt forest on the one hand and the two burnt forests on the other. Thus, in all, fire caused shifts in liana
P. Addo-Fordjour (*) : D. Fosu Department of Theoretical and Applied Biology, College of Science, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana e-mail: [email protected] e-mail: [email protected] F. Kadan Forest Services Division, Nkawie Forest District, Forestry Commission Ghana, Nkawie, Ghana
community structure and liana–soil associations in the forests. The findings of the study have implications for liana, fire and forest management. Keywords environmental factors . fire disturbance . lianas . species distribution . soil properties
Introduction Lianas are woody climbing plants that are independently rooted in the soil but use other plants (most especially trees) as structural support to get access to the forest canopy (Addo-Fordjour 2014). They form a conspicuous part of tropical forest ecosystems and act as a major physiognomic feature which distinguishes them from temperate forests (cf. Schnitzer and Bongers 2002). In tropical forests, lianas play useful ecological roles that contribute towards forest dynamics and functioning
Z. B. Rahmad School of Biological Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Pulau Pinang, Penang, Malaysia B. Ofosu-Bamfo Department of Basic and Applied Biology, School of Sciences, University of Energy and Natural Resources, P. O. Box 214, Sunyani, Ghana
P. Addo-Fordjour et al.
(Laurence et al. 2001). In terms of diversity, they contribute about 38% of woody plant species richness in tropical forests (Addo-Fordjour et al. 2008). Besides, lianas perform other activities that help in the maintenance of biodiversity in tropical forest
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