Comparison of Woody Species Diversity and Carbon Stock along Natural Forest to Farmland Conversion Gradient in the Gura-Ferda District of Southwestern Ethiopia

ABSTRACT

Gura-Ferda forest is part of the moist evergreen Afromontane forest in southwestern Ethiopia. Despite the fact that large sections of this forest have become increasingly disturbed and fragmented since 1984, there is no scientific data on the dynamics of woody species diversity and forest carbon pools. As a result, the research was carried out to assess and compare the diversity of woody species and carbon stock along natural forest to farmland conversion gradient. Data were collected from natural forest, forest-farm interface, and farmland that were previously forest land. For the inventory of woody species, 90 nested plots (20 m*20 m for natural forest and forest-farm interface; 50 m*100 m for farmland) were established. To collect litter and soil samples, three 1 m*1 m subplots were established. Shannon-Wiener diversity index is significantly higher (p < .05) in natural forests (H’ = 2.72 ± 0.31) than in forest-farm interface (H’ = 1.42 ± 0.49) and farmland (H’ = 1.08 ± 0.57). Natural forest total carbon stocks were approximately 1.55 and 2.64 times higher than forest-farm interface and farmland, respectively. This study revealed that there was a substantial reduction in species diversity and carbon stocks along the conversion gradient of natural forest to farmland. The Natural Resource Management sector of the district should use management approaches to reduce the pressure on natural forest, which has resulted in a substantial decrease in species richness and carbon stocks along the natural forest to farmland conversion gradient.

KEYWORDS:

• Forest-farm interface
• biomass carbon
• soil organic carbon
• litter

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the logistic and technical support we received from Wondo Genet College of Forestry and Natural Resources Soil Laboratory, Hawassa University. We sincerely thank the farmers of the study area for their kindness and enthusiasm to talk to us and for allowing us to take measurements on their farms. Our gratitude goes to experts at the National Herbarium of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa University, for their generous support for species identification that makes our research very fruitful

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data Availability

https://datadryad.org/stash/share/00HE1stnxm6T5knrJC_qa7ou4FyICjwu6hfGbobMXOM

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and the Ministry of Education in Ethiopia