Abstract booklet - gtö – Society for Tropical Ecology

172 SCIENTIFIC POSTER SESSION | FOYERSCIENTIFIC POSTER SESSION | FOYER173Topic: East African mountain forests: functional ecology andsustainable managementTopic: African savannas biodiversity - past, present, futureREHABILITATION OF DEGRADED NATURAL FORESTS BYENRICHMENT PLANTING OF FOUR NATIVE SPECIES INETHIOPIAN HIGHLANDSAbebe G 1 , El Kateb H 1 , Fetene M 1 , Reinhard Mosandl 1MODELLING SPATIAL PATTERNS OF SAVANNAS IN CENTRALAFRICAN REPUBLICJulie Aleman 11Technische Univ. München, Freising, DE, mosandl@forst.tu-muenchen.de1Université Montpellier II, MONTPELLIER, FR, julie.aleman@univ-montp2.frWEDNESDAY | FOYERPresenter: Reinhard MosandlIn the Munessa-Shashemene Forest in Ethiopia the survival, growthand photosynthetic performance of enrichment planting of fourspecies (Cordia africana, Juniperus procera, Prunus africana, andPodocarpus falcatus) was investigated. Planting was undertaken ingaps in the degraded natural forest. Two years after planting, only23% of the C. africana and P. africana seedlings had survived, whileJ. procera and P. falcatus showed higher survival rates of 76% and47%, respectively. The development of the height over the first twoyearobservation period was reasonable for J. procera and P. falcatus.Inadequate height development was registered for P. africana, whichwas strongly affected by browsing and for C. Africana, which sufferedfrom drought. P. falcatus exhibited the lowest photosynthesis andtranspiration rates, which were associated with the highest wateruse efficiency of all the four species. Enrichment planting especiallywith J. procera and P. falcatus can be recommended to restore thedegraded natural forests.Savannas are biomes where trees and grasses co-dominate. Woody cover isa determinant variable to define savanna type. Factors that determine therelative proportions of trees and grasses across the various savanna typesare still under debate. Because savannas are one of the most sensitiveecosystems to future global changes, and known to have been so during theHolocene, we stress the need of a better understanding of the relationshipsbetween woody cover and those factors.The aim of this study is to determine the functional relationships and therelative importance of several forcing factors (precipitation, soil propertiesand fire) in the distribution of woody cover in Central African savannas.We used remote sensed data to determine the dependence of woody cover,expressed in LAI derived from MODIS product, to annual precipitation(Meteosat), soil properties (FAO data) and fire regimes (MODIS Burned Areaproduct) using a statistical model.Spatial modeling of vegetation will enable us to describe the functionalrelationships between woody cover, environmental forcing andanthropogenic pressure.Moreover, applying this statistical model will enable us to predict vegetationchanges over various scenario of climate and anthropogenic changes.Wednesday WEDNESDAY 16:00 | FOYER | FoyergtöSociety for Tropical Ecology | Gesellschaft für Tropenökologie e.V. Status and future of tropical biodiversity | Frankfurt, 21 - 24 February 2011gtö