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An annotated checklist of the coastal forests of Kenya, East Africa
The inadequacy of information impedes society’s competence to find out the cause or degree of a problem or even to avoid further losses in an ecosystem. It becomes even harder to identify all the biological resources at risk because there is no exhaustive inventory of either fauna or flora of a part...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Pensoft Publishers
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7237506/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32476978 http://dx.doi.org/10.3897/phytokeys.147.49602 |
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author | Ngumbau, Veronicah Mutele Luke, Quentin Nyange, Mwadime Wanga, Vincent Okelo Watuma, Benjamin Muema Mbuni, Yuvenalis Morara Munyao, Jacinta Ndunge Oulo, Millicent Akinyi Mkala, Elijah Mbandi Kipkoech, Solomon Itambo, Malombe Hu, Guang-Wan Wang, Qing-Feng |
author_facet | Ngumbau, Veronicah Mutele Luke, Quentin Nyange, Mwadime Wanga, Vincent Okelo Watuma, Benjamin Muema Mbuni, Yuvenalis Morara Munyao, Jacinta Ndunge Oulo, Millicent Akinyi Mkala, Elijah Mbandi Kipkoech, Solomon Itambo, Malombe Hu, Guang-Wan Wang, Qing-Feng |
author_sort | Ngumbau, Veronicah Mutele |
collection | PubMed |
description | The inadequacy of information impedes society’s competence to find out the cause or degree of a problem or even to avoid further losses in an ecosystem. It becomes even harder to identify all the biological resources at risk because there is no exhaustive inventory of either fauna or flora of a particular region. Coastal forests of Kenya are located in the southeast part of Kenya and are distributed mainly in four counties: Kwale, Kilifi, Lamu, and Tana River County. They are a stretch of fragmented forests ca. 30−120 km away from the Indian Ocean, and they have existed for millions of years. Diversity of both fauna and flora is very high in these relicts and the coastal forests of Eastern Africa, extending along the coast from Somalia through Kenya and Tanzania to Mozambique, are ranked among the priority biodiversity hotspot in the world. In spite of the high plant species richness and their importance towards supporting the livelihoods of the communities that live around them, floristic studies in these forests have remained poorly investigated. Hence, based on numerous field investigations, plant lists from published monograph/literature, and data from BRAHMS (Botanical Records and Herbarium Management System) database at East African herbarium (EA), we present a detailed checklist of vascular plants recorded in this region. Our results show that Kenyan coastal forests play an essential role in the flora of Kenya and the plant diversity of the coastal forests of East Africa. The checklist represents 176 families, 981 genera, 2489 species, 100 infraspecific taxa, 90 endemic plants species, 72 exotic species, and 120 species that are included in the current IUCN Red List of Threatened Species as species of major concern. We also discovered three new species to the world from these relicts. Thus, Kenyan coastal forests present a remarkable and significant center of plant diversity. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7237506 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | Pensoft Publishers |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-72375062020-05-29 An annotated checklist of the coastal forests of Kenya, East Africa Ngumbau, Veronicah Mutele Luke, Quentin Nyange, Mwadime Wanga, Vincent Okelo Watuma, Benjamin Muema Mbuni, Yuvenalis Morara Munyao, Jacinta Ndunge Oulo, Millicent Akinyi Mkala, Elijah Mbandi Kipkoech, Solomon Itambo, Malombe Hu, Guang-Wan Wang, Qing-Feng PhytoKeys Checklist The inadequacy of information impedes society’s competence to find out the cause or degree of a problem or even to avoid further losses in an ecosystem. It becomes even harder to identify all the biological resources at risk because there is no exhaustive inventory of either fauna or flora of a particular region. Coastal forests of Kenya are located in the southeast part of Kenya and are distributed mainly in four counties: Kwale, Kilifi, Lamu, and Tana River County. They are a stretch of fragmented forests ca. 30−120 km away from the Indian Ocean, and they have existed for millions of years. Diversity of both fauna and flora is very high in these relicts and the coastal forests of Eastern Africa, extending along the coast from Somalia through Kenya and Tanzania to Mozambique, are ranked among the priority biodiversity hotspot in the world. In spite of the high plant species richness and their importance towards supporting the livelihoods of the communities that live around them, floristic studies in these forests have remained poorly investigated. Hence, based on numerous field investigations, plant lists from published monograph/literature, and data from BRAHMS (Botanical Records and Herbarium Management System) database at East African herbarium (EA), we present a detailed checklist of vascular plants recorded in this region. Our results show that Kenyan coastal forests play an essential role in the flora of Kenya and the plant diversity of the coastal forests of East Africa. The checklist represents 176 families, 981 genera, 2489 species, 100 infraspecific taxa, 90 endemic plants species, 72 exotic species, and 120 species that are included in the current IUCN Red List of Threatened Species as species of major concern. We also discovered three new species to the world from these relicts. Thus, Kenyan coastal forests present a remarkable and significant center of plant diversity. Pensoft Publishers 2020-05-12 /pmc/articles/PMC7237506/ /pubmed/32476978 http://dx.doi.org/10.3897/phytokeys.147.49602 Text en Veronicah Mutele Ngumbau, Quentin Luke, Mwadime Nyange, Vincent Okelo Wanga, Benjamin Muema Watuma, Yuvenalis Morara Mbuni, Jacinta Ndunge Munyao, Millicent Akinyi Oulo, Elijah Mbandi Mkala, Solomon Kipkoech, Malombe Itambo, Guang-Wan Hu, Qing-Feng Wang http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Checklist Ngumbau, Veronicah Mutele Luke, Quentin Nyange, Mwadime Wanga, Vincent Okelo Watuma, Benjamin Muema Mbuni, Yuvenalis Morara Munyao, Jacinta Ndunge Oulo, Millicent Akinyi Mkala, Elijah Mbandi Kipkoech, Solomon Itambo, Malombe Hu, Guang-Wan Wang, Qing-Feng An annotated checklist of the coastal forests of Kenya, East Africa |
title | An annotated checklist of the coastal forests of Kenya, East Africa |
title_full | An annotated checklist of the coastal forests of Kenya, East Africa |
title_fullStr | An annotated checklist of the coastal forests of Kenya, East Africa |
title_full_unstemmed | An annotated checklist of the coastal forests of Kenya, East Africa |
title_short | An annotated checklist of the coastal forests of Kenya, East Africa |
title_sort | annotated checklist of the coastal forests of kenya, east africa |
topic | Checklist |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7237506/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32476978 http://dx.doi.org/10.3897/phytokeys.147.49602 |
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