Biodiversity of Mahale Mountains National Park, Tanzania | Report ...

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1. INTRODUCTION Biodiversity of Mahale Mountains National Park This work was undertaken as part of the Mahale Mountains Ecosystem Management Project. The main goal was to provide a baseline inventory of 5 taxa from Mahale Mountains National Park – birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and plants - and to collect data on species distribution and relative abundance (where possible). Data for this inventory were collected in the field and collated from all available records, both published and unpublished Fieldwork was carried out from 21 October to 27 November 2005 and 6-12 February 2006. Field survey camps were established at three localities. The first was at Kabanda (Flycatcher campsite) in Kasoge forest, the second along the Kabezi River, and the third on the Mahale Ridge just south of Mfitwa Mt. Eighteen transects totalling 57,140 m were marked out and surveyed. Transects were used to survey plants, birds and larger mammals and a variety of other methods were used to survey small mammals, reptiles and amphibians. The goal of the systematic surveys was to generate semi-quantitative data on encounter rates for the commoner mammal species, relative abundance data for the birds, as well as species composition for plants. Mammals were surveyed systematically along transects and birds and plants were sampled at points every 250m. Opportunistic observations were collected for birds and mammals to supplement transect and point counts, and a series of camera traps were deployed to detect the more cryptic and nocturnal mammal species. These data were combined to generate site lists for each locality. Bird data were supplemented by systematic mist-netting at the Mfitwa locality. Plant species were samples through general collections of fertile material and through sample plots laid out along transects. Small mammals, reptiles and amphibians were sampled opportunistically and using bucket pitfall lines, Sherman live-traps, Tomahawk live-traps, cryptic searching and calling male surveys. Providing a complete inventory of all 5 taxa is an enormous undertaking and fieldwork will continue for many years before this task is complete. Nevertheless, good progress has been made. At present about 85% of the bird species and 70% of the mammal species likely to occur in the park have been found. Further work on these two groups remains to be done in the large areas of Miombo Woodland in the east and south and in the mid-elevation forests between 1200–1800 m. Good progress has also been made on the inventory of plants in Mahale but there is still a lot of general collecting to be done. In this report, lists of species know to occur in Mahale Mountains National Park will be presented, together with the semi-quantitative data collected during the field work. Gaps in the data will be highlighted and recommendations made for future surveys, monitoring and research activities. Wildlife Conservation Society 1
2. BACKGROUND Biodiversity of Mahale Mountains National Park 2.1 MAHALE MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK Mahale Mountains National Park was declared in 1985 and covers an area of 1613 km 2 (Anonymous 1980, Nishida 1990). Of this area, just over 1500 km 2 is terrestrial and 96km 2 is aquatic, covering the portion along the shore of Lake Tanganyika and extending 1.6 km (1 mile) into the lake. The most obvious physical feature of the park is Nkungwe Mountain, the highest peak along the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika. Nkungwe has always attracted attention, and nearly all early travellers passing the area wrote about it (Cameron & Markham 1875, Kirschstein 1937, O’Hagen 1940, Moreau 1943, Grant 1948, Procter 1958, Nishida 1990 and references therein). However, long before any of these European explorers ever visited this area, Nkungwe Mt. was venerated as the seat of a powerful but benevolent paramount spirit Nkungwe (sometimes also referred to as Mulangwa) (Hatchell 1928, 1941, Kirschstein 1937). This long tradition of spirit worship continues to the present day. The exact height of Nkungwe peak is difficult to establish from the literature. Claude Grant, who surveyed the area in the 1930s gives it as 2597 m. Nishida (1990) gives a height of 2460 m, whereas Kano (1990) gives it as 2520 m. From the contours on the Buhingu topographical sheet the elevation appears to be just over 2520 m (Government of Tanzania 1980a). However, the topo sheets covering Mahale are not totally accurate in areas with very steep terrain. The exact height remains to be fixed using a GPS receiver. After Nkungwe, the most striking feature of the park is Lake Tanganyika. At more than 673 km long this Africa’s longest and deepest (1470 m) lake and the second deepest lake in the world (Wikipedia 2006). Lake levels have fluctuated considerably since early explorers first mapped the shoreline of Lake Tanganyika (Cameron & Markham 1875, Grant 1935, 1949). This was because of the periodic natural blocking of the outlet at the Lukugu River on the Congo side of the lake. The last decline in level was probably spread out over a number of years as evidenced from the several obvious beach layers between the old high water mark and the present level along the shoreline of the national park. When Cameron passed through this area, Kibwesa point at the southwest corner of the park was an island, and he sailed through a channel 300 m wide between it and the mainland (Cameron and Markham 1875). Detailed descriptions of the vegetation and physiognomy of Mahale Mountains National Park have been published and will not be repeated here (see especially Nishida 1990 and references therein). The main habitat covering the park is Miombo (Zambesian) woodland, but there are also extensive stands of lowland and highland bamboo, grassland, bushland, montane forest, lowland forest and aquatic habitats distributed across the park. 2.2 HISTORY OF BIOLOGICAL SURVEYS AND RESEARCH IN MAHALE Biological surveys in Mahale began in the 1940’s when R. E. Moreau sent his field assistant, Salimu Asumani, to collect birds in this area (Moreau 1941, 1943). A total of 600 specimens were collected from around the Mahale ecosystem of which 15 were new forms (subspecies). Sometime later, Moreau (1950) produced a summary of ornithological research in Tanzania, and a fairly comprehensive bibliography up to 1950. From this, it is obvious that very little ornithological research took place in the Mahale area over the next sixteen years. In 1958 and 1959, two biological and anthropological research expeditions from Oxford University visited Mahale. General reports on these surveys were published by Davis (1959), Juniper (1959), and Simkin & Juniper (1961) (cited in Nishida 1990). Several other papers were published on these surveys covering specific groups (see Nishida 1990 and references therein). This research greatly increased knowledge about biodiversity and zoogeography of Mahale, but both expeditions were short term and exploratory in scope. In the late 1950’s, and Wildlife Conservation Society 2
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Monanthotaxis buchananii Monanthota
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Baikaea insignis Baphiopsis parvifl
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Drypetes natalensis Erythrococca at
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Gladiolus erectiflorus Gladiolus gr
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†Thecacoris lucida Orchidaceae Ae
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Rothmannia longiflora Rothmannia ma
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