Vascular Plant Species Diversity And Ethnobotany In Yilmana Densa And Quarit Districts Of West Gojjam Zone Amhara Region Ethiopia

A study of vascular plant species diversity and ethnobotany was conducted in Yilmana Densa and Quarit districts of West Gojjam Zone, Amhara Region, Ethiopia. The purpose of the study was to record, document and analyze vascular plant species and to describe their diversity and interaction with the local people. Five patches of forests were taken and a total of 104 quadrats each measuring 20 m × 20 m were laid down at every 50 m intervals along five transect lines. For herbaceous species a 2 m x 2 m subquadrat were laid down. For ethnobotanical study, a total of 395 (267 males and 128 females) informants were selected from 19 sampled rural Kebeles of two districts (7 from Quarit and 12 from Yilmana Densa).These Kebeles and key informants were selected purposively. The data collection tools were semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, observation and market surveys. Two types of data analysis methods were conducted. The first was vegetation data analysis including community analysis, structural analysis, computing important indices and analysis of plant similarity, regeneration and species-area relationship. The second analysis method was ethnobotanical analysis and it included informant consensus, fidelity level, frequency index, cultural significance index, use diversity, direct matrix and preference ranking, descriptive and inferential statistics analyses. Vegetation data were analyzed via hierarchical cluster analysis using R version 3.5.1 software. SPSS version 20 and Microsoft excel spread sheet 2007 were used for the analysis of descriptive and inferential statistics. Following the analysis, 300 species were recorded and reported from the districts. Twenty four species were endemic while 10 species were exotic. Most of the species (249 species) were reserved in the five forest patches. The species of the patches were included in 81 families. Out of which, Asteraceae was represented with highest species (35 species) followed by Fabaceae (29 species). Majority of the species were herbs. Four community types namely Croton macrostachyus - Maytenus gracilipes community, Calpurnia aurea - Osyris quadripartita - Rosa abyssinica - Pterolobium stellatum community, Maesa lanceolata - Dodonea angustifolia - Otostegia integrifolia community and Acacia negrii-Rhus glutinosa- Clutia lanceolata community were identified. Community 1 and 4 had highest number of endemic, medicinal and wild edible species. The total individuals of woody species (DBH > 2.5 cm) were 15087. Dodonea angustifolia was recorded with highest individuals (5682). The total density was also about 3627 ha-1 whereas the total basal area was 29.8 m2 ha-1. Some representative woody species were recorded with 3 distribution patterns namely Inverted ‘J’ shaped, ‘Bell’ shaped and Upward ‘F’. Though most woody species were recorded with low frequencies, Croton macrostachyus was the most frequent species. The total plant diversity (H') of the two districts was 3.765. A total of 491.4 seedlings ha-1, 735.95ha-1 saplings and 2044.3ha-1 mature individuals were recorded from the patches. There was a significant mean percentage difference among these groups (P

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