{"title":"The main forest species encountered in southern and central Benin, West Africa.","authors":"Gorgias Aikpon, Kourouma Koura, Jean C Ganglo","doi":"10.3897/BDJ.12.e129134","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>The south of Benin, a country in West Africa, is still home to remnants of dense forests that benefit from a particularly rainy sub-equatorial climate, with annual rainfall of up to 1,200 mm. These forest ecosystems are an integral part of the West African forest block, which stretches from Liberia to Togo. However, despite their richness and ecological importance, these forests are unfortunately subject to strong human pressures, particularly from slash-and-burn agriculture, intensive logging and the growing urbanisation of coastal areas. Preserving these forests is crucial, however, as they are home to remarkable plant and animal biodiversity, with many endemic species. What's more, these forests play an essential role in regulating the local climate, protecting soil and water resources, as well as providing local populations with a vital source of energy wood, non-timber forest products and support for their traditional agricultural practices. Faced with these conservation challenges, identifying and characterising the main tree species found in the forests of southern and central Benin, forest species and their ecology is an essential prerequisite for implementing sustainable management and restoration strategies for these threatened forest ecosystems in southern Benin. This work aims to identify and draw attention to the different forest species, specially tree forest species present in southern and central Benin.</p><p><strong>New information: </strong>The dataset provides information on forest species found in southern and central Benin, West Africa. This dataset is extremely useful for forestry research, as it focuses mainly on the various forest species of major importance. It can be used as a basis for characterising individuals or populations of species, based on their abundance in relation to anthropogenic pressure and changes in environmental conditions.These species are characteristic of forests and, above all, are of particular interest both to populations and to managers of protected areas. Field collections were initiated in 2007 as part of natural forest inventory work. The data collected have been completed by various field works that followed this work on forest species in southern Benin. The latest version of the dataset is publicly and freely accessible on the GBIF website at the address https://www.gbif.org/dataset/aff3a10a-a86b-4eff-98e4-d63f92fd6f7e.It should be noted that the fact that the collection and monitoring were carried out in southern Benin, a region known for its great diversity of species, over a period of 10 years making these data particularly relevant information to study the effects of climate change and human pressure on ecosystems in this area.</p>","PeriodicalId":55994,"journal":{"name":"Biodiversity Data Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-09-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11393484/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Biodiversity Data Journal","FirstCategoryId":"93","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.12.e129134","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2024/1/1 0:00:00","PubModel":"eCollection","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Background: The south of Benin, a country in West Africa, is still home to remnants of dense forests that benefit from a particularly rainy sub-equatorial climate, with annual rainfall of up to 1,200 mm. These forest ecosystems are an integral part of the West African forest block, which stretches from Liberia to Togo. However, despite their richness and ecological importance, these forests are unfortunately subject to strong human pressures, particularly from slash-and-burn agriculture, intensive logging and the growing urbanisation of coastal areas. Preserving these forests is crucial, however, as they are home to remarkable plant and animal biodiversity, with many endemic species. What's more, these forests play an essential role in regulating the local climate, protecting soil and water resources, as well as providing local populations with a vital source of energy wood, non-timber forest products and support for their traditional agricultural practices. Faced with these conservation challenges, identifying and characterising the main tree species found in the forests of southern and central Benin, forest species and their ecology is an essential prerequisite for implementing sustainable management and restoration strategies for these threatened forest ecosystems in southern Benin. This work aims to identify and draw attention to the different forest species, specially tree forest species present in southern and central Benin.
New information: The dataset provides information on forest species found in southern and central Benin, West Africa. This dataset is extremely useful for forestry research, as it focuses mainly on the various forest species of major importance. It can be used as a basis for characterising individuals or populations of species, based on their abundance in relation to anthropogenic pressure and changes in environmental conditions.These species are characteristic of forests and, above all, are of particular interest both to populations and to managers of protected areas. Field collections were initiated in 2007 as part of natural forest inventory work. The data collected have been completed by various field works that followed this work on forest species in southern Benin. The latest version of the dataset is publicly and freely accessible on the GBIF website at the address https://www.gbif.org/dataset/aff3a10a-a86b-4eff-98e4-d63f92fd6f7e.It should be noted that the fact that the collection and monitoring were carried out in southern Benin, a region known for its great diversity of species, over a period of 10 years making these data particularly relevant information to study the effects of climate change and human pressure on ecosystems in this area.
Biodiversity Data JournalAgricultural and Biological Sciences-Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
CiteScore
2.20
自引率
7.70%
发文量
283
审稿时长
6 weeks
期刊介绍:
Biodiversity Data Journal (BDJ) is a community peer-reviewed, open-access, comprehensive online platform, designed to accelerate publishing, dissemination and sharing of biodiversity-related data of any kind. All structural elements of the articles – text, morphological descriptions, occurrences, data tables, etc. – will be treated and stored as DATA, in accordance with the Data Publishing Policies and Guidelines of Pensoft Publishers.
The journal will publish papers in biodiversity science containing taxonomic, floristic/faunistic, morphological, genomic, phylogenetic, ecological or environmental data on any taxon of any geological age from any part of the world with no lower or upper limit to manuscript size.