woldu, Zerihun (PhD)Demissew, Sebsebe (Professor)Biru, Mekonnen2018-07-032023-11-092018-07-032023-11-092003-06http://etd.aau.edu.et/handle/123456789/6040Biteyu Forest is located at the edge of the western escarpment of the Gurage mountain chain. This forest is probably one of the forest patches that were once widespread on the central plateaux of Shewa. In this study vegetation composition of the forest following altitudinal gradients was performed. Sixty, 20 m x 20 m quadrats were selected and all the plants in the quadrats were recorded. Cover abundance value of all the species was estimated. The vegetation data was analyzed using the program SYNTAX (Podani, 1998) to identify the community types. Six community types were identified and named after two or three dominant species. Shannon-Wiener diversity index were computed to measure species diversity in a comunity. One-way analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to test the difference in communities in relation to environmental parameters along the altitudinal gradient including soil properties (pH, texture and electrical conductivity), altitude, slope and aspect. Height and DBH of the woody species in all the quadrats were taken. 177 species belonging to 143 genera and 68 families were identified. Shannon-Wiener diversity index revealed that species diversity is high in communities 1, 4 and 2 respectively. This is probably due to high rate of disturbance in the communities. Statistical analysis (ANOVA) have shown that the difference in communities might partly be explained by the variation in altitude, slope and soil properties at p< 0.05 level of significance with the exception of aspect and silt. Height and DBH class measurement indicated that most of the woody species in the forest are confined in the lowest class distribution. Søresen’s similarity coefficient showed the similarity of the forest with Menagesha-Suba forest in floristic composition.enBiologyThesis