KatharinaSchumannInstitute of Ecology, Evolution and Diversity, Goethe University Frankfurt, EU project UNDESERT

Max von Laue Str. 13Frankfurt60438Germany

KatharinaSchumannassociatedPartyNacoulmaBlandineCo-owner2015-02-04Useful woody species contribute enormously to maintain livelihoods in rural areas of West Africa and are strongly influenced by environmental conditions and human activities. In order to assess species-specific responses to these factors, we studied distribution and diversity patterns of useful woody species in relation to several environmental factors in- and outside of a protected area in eastern Burkina Faso. We used a species distribution modeling approach and modeled separately for adults and juveniles. While adult distributions can be interpreted as the current state of the species, juvenile distributions give hints about the species population development in the future. Our results reveal that elevation and precipitation were the most influencing environmental factors on distributions of both juvenile and adult diversity. Furthermore, we demonstrated that the responses to human activities differed widely between species and often even between adults and juveniles of the same species emphasizing the difficulty of giving over-simplified statements about the human impact on useful woody species. We were able to classify the useful species into five groups with similar reaction to human activities. We discuss which species groups might persist under increasing human pressure and which groups are likely to face a declining trend in the future.environmental factorshuman impactsemi-arid savannaspecies distribution modelingwest africaObtain permission from data set owner(s)Semi-arid area in the eastern part of Burkina Faso (province Tapoa), W-Nationalpark and surroundings1.66672.2512.41671.666720072013dataset is covering 14 useful woody species SpeciesAfzelia africana, Annona senegalensis, Anogeissus leiocarpa, Bombax costatum, Burkea africana, Detarium microcarpum, Gardenia erubescens, Piliostigma thonningii, Prosopis africana, Pteleopsis suberosa, Terminalia avicennioides, Terminalia macroptera, Vitellaria paradoxa, Xeroderris stuhlmanniiKatharinaSchumannInstitute of Ecology, Evolution and Diversity, Goethe University Frankfurt, EU project UNDESERT

Max von Laue Str. 13Frankfurt60438Germany

Schumann@bio.uni-frankfurt.de

In total, 53 woody species are known as highly useful for this region based on local information in the communal area of the W National Park (Koadima 2008). Occurrence data of these useful woody species were extracted from several vegetation inventories in the study area (Nacoulma et al. 2011a; Erpenbach et al. 2013), i.e. from 208 vegetation plots in the protected area and 243 plots in the communal area. These vegetation plots were located within the study site following a stratified random design using ASTER satellite images from 2006 and 2007 with a spatial resolution of 30 m and soil maps in order to cover the main occurring habitat types (i.e. dry, medium, wet, and rocky conditions), exclusive of ruderal and segetal habitats. Vegetation sampling of these inventories was done separately for the woody layer (plots with a size of 900 m2) and herb layer (100 m2). The herb layer plots were randomly located inside the corresponding woody layer plots (for method description, see Nacoulma et al. 2011a). Occurrence data of juveniles (height < 1.5 m) of the useful woody species were extracted from the herb layer plots and adult data (height > 1.5 m) from the woody layer plots. Species nomenclature followed Gautier et al. (2006). Based on the vegetation inventories, we only considered useful woody species with more than 15 occurrence points for both juveniles and adults (Appendix S1). From the 53 useful woody species cited by Koadima (2008), 18 species fulfilled this criteria and were kept for further analysis (Appendix S1).

Diversity_useful_woody_species.JPGDiversity_useful_woody_species.JPG57414JPEGhttps://dataportal.senckenberg.de/dataset/7f7dafac-1b78-48dd-bed0-ed2b2c36f9bb/resource/f379b33d-7400-4b39-b4c2-83799d47ea5f/download/diversity_useful_woody_species.jpgOther timeseries other just one inventory