An insight into Northern Wollo Monastery Forests: Examining plant species diversity, vegetation structure, and regeneration analysis of these relict ecosystems.

ABSTRACT: Monastery forests in the Ethiopian highlands serve as cultural sanctuaries and critical refugia for Afromontane biodiversity. We conducted floristic inventories (n = 90 nested 20 m × 20 m plots) and demographic censuses (2039 woody stems) across five forest fragments (6.7-82.1 ha) to assess α- and β-diversity, evaluate population viability of key canopy species, and analyse the influence of topography and anthropogenic disturbance on community composition. Coverage-based rarefaction for species richness (Hill q = 0) estimated standardized estimate 32 ± 3.7 to 78 ± 5.2 species ha ⁻ ¹ while Shannon diversity (q = 1) ranged from 3.17 to 3.86 effective species. A Sørensen-based PERMANOVA confirmed significant compositional differentiation among forests (F₄,₈₅ = 3.66, P = 0.001), pair-wise turn

SUBMITTER: Abebe A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12443291 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature