Fisheries in the Southern Border Zone of Takamanda - Impact ...

Vegetation Assessment of Takamanda Forest Reserve, Cameroon
Chapter 3
Terry C.H. Sunderland, James A. Comiskey, Simon Besong, Hyacinth
Mboh, John Fonwebon and Mercy Abwe Dione
1 Introduction
Aside from South Africa, Cameroon is the most
biologically rich country known to date on the African
continent (IUCN 1986). It encompasses an intricate
mosaic of diverse habitats, with moist, tropical forest
dominating in the south and southeast and covering 54%
of the country (WCMC 1994), montane forest and alpine
savannah in the highlands, and sub-sahelian savannah
and near desert in the far north (Letouzey 1968 and 1985,
White 1983). These diverse habitats harbor more than
9,000 species of plants, 160 of which are endemic
(WCMC 1994). The majority of the endemic taxa are
concentrated around Mount Cameroon and other
highland areas.
The forests of the cross-border region between
Cameroon and Nigeria are also extraordinarily diverse,
with a high degree of endemism (Davis et al. 1994). This
area, where forest types are heavily influenced by
drainage patterns and topographical features, is the last
refuge in Cameroon for the Cross River gorilla (Gorilla
gorilla deihli; Sunderland-Groves et al. this volume).
Compared to other forests in the Guineo-Congolian
region, Cross River border forests are floristically
diverse, with forest formations in Takamanda Forest
Reserve (TFR) representing much of this diversity.
This paper presents the findings of a vegetation
study conducted in TFR between September 2000 and
July 2001. For a more complete description of the
Reserve, see Sunderland-Groves et al. (this volume).
1.1 Vegetation Surveys
Botanical expeditions have been conducted in the larger
study area since the 1920s when numerous collections
were made in the Obudu Plateau of Nigeria, which forms
the western extension of the Bamenda Highlands of
Cameroon (Hall and Medler 1975). Keay (1979)
provides descriptions of habitats identified during a
botanical expedition conducted in 1948. On the
Cameroon side, attention has focused on the
mountainous region, especially Mount Cameroon (for
example, Cable and Cheek 1998, Hall 1973, Richards
1963a and b). To the west and bordering on Nigeria’s
Cross River National Park, Korup National Park has
been the setting for extensive botanical and ecological
work, including quantitative assessments (Newbery and
Gartlan 1996), phenology (Newbery et al. 1996), and
studies of nutrients and mycorrhizae (Gartlan et al. 1986,
Newbery et al. 1988, Newbery et al. 1997). A
preliminary botanical expedition to Takamanda was
conducted by Etuge (1998). Two 1-ha biodiversity plots
were established in 1997, the first in Cross River
National Park and the second in the Okwangwo Division
(Comiskey et al. unpublished data).
Recently, the Smithsonian Institution established a
forest dynamics plot where all trees with a diameter
greater than 1 cm were measured in a 50-ha area in
Korup National Park (Schuster et al. 1999, Thomas et al.
2003, Songwe et al. in press). To the north of Korup in
the Ejagham Forest Reserve, two 1-hectare biodiversity
plots were established in 1997 (Sunderland et al. 1997).
These plots were remeasured in 2002 and provide the
first quantitative information on dynamics of forests in
the region (Comiskey and Sunderland unpublished data).
1.2 Takamanda Vegetation Assessment
Until recently, there was a considerable lack of detailed
knowledge about vegetative composition in the
Takamanda area. As part of the present assessment, a
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