Wetland Vegetation Composition and Ecology of Abaya and Chamo in Southern and Fincha'a Chomen and Dabus in Western Ethiopia

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Date

2013-05

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Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Abstract

Wetland Vegetations ofChamo and Abaya Lakes in the sOllthern and Fincha 'a-Chomen and Dabus marshes in western Ethiopia were stlldied 10 determine floristic composition. I'egetotion ecology. plant community types and to identify environmental factors significantl), influencing the distriblltion of plant species and community types. A total of 339 relevr}s were laid along transects that were set up preferentially across areas where there were rapid changes in vegetalion or marked environmental gradients to collect data on estimate of percentage aerial cover of planl species and environmental variables. A total of 302 plant species belonging to 194 genera and 72 families were identified. The most dominant fap/ilies in all the sites were Asteraceae, Poaceae. Cyperaceae and Fabaceae. Multivariate data analyses were performed using appropriate packages in R version 2.14.0. Vegef(ltion data were analyzed by agglomerative hierarchical cluster analysis IIsing similarity ratio as a resembl{/nce index and Ward 's linkage method. Canonical Correspondence Analysis (eCA) was used to explore the relationship between the species composition and environmemal variables. The environmental data to be included in the CCA were determ ined using stepwise backward (md fonvard selection of variables by ANOVA lest. Statistical measurement regarding species diversity, richness and evenness of the plant community types was carried 0 1/1 by /Ising Shannon-Wiener (1949) diversity indices. Sample-based raref action curves were computed in the program EstimateS (Colwell. 2005) 10 estimare and compare species richness across sites of different sizes. Comparison of the floristic diversity of the wetlands showed that Dab/ls marsh had the highest alpha diversity. From all the study sites, relmively the highest number of plam community types was recorded f rom 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 ulke Abaya) and water depth. disturbance alld hydrogeomorphology (in wetlands of Lake Chamo). All of the measured faCial'S had significanl role in Dablls and Finclla 'o-Chomen marshes. Therefore, these should be considered in I ll/lire f1I(magemenl and prorection under the circumstance 01 climate chOflge and human activities.

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Wetland Vegetation Composition and Ecology

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