caa a22 4500 46321840X CHVBK 20180405153204.0 cr unu---uuuuu 170326e20070501xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/s11056-006-9029-0 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s11056-006-9029-0 The role of land tenure in conservation of tree and shrub species diversity in miombo woodlands of southern Malawi [Elektronische Daten] [Weston Mwase, Åsmund Bjørnstad, James Bokosi, Moses Kwapata, Brita Stedje] Biodiversity is declining throughout southern African miombo woodlands due to poor land use practices that are detrimental to soil, vegetation and habitat. We aimed at examining tree and shrub species diversity and distribution in Uapaca kirkiana-dominated woodlands under three land tenure types; forest reserves, customary and leasehold land. The study was conducted at different forest sites within similar agroecological zone in southern Malawi. Study sites were located at a range of altitudes between 900 and 1,200ma.s.l. Three circular plots each with 32.60m radius were established at each study site to sample tree and shrub species composition, structure and distribution under three land tenure types. We found that forest reserves had higher species diversity with an average of 16 tree families, 27 genera and 34 species as compared to only 10 tree families, 6 genera and 6 species on customary forest lands. Comparisons of diameter at breast height size class distributions showed that customary land had significantly low numbers of small (5.0-10.0cm) and very large (≥30cm) diameter classes suggesting lower levels of regeneration and high rate of anthropogenic activities. The high species diversity and richness in forest reserves and leasehold land indicate high potential for protected lands to restore tree species diversity. It is concluded that levels of human activities as influenced by land tenure type reduce tree species diversity, composition and distribution at the different sites, and this confirms the hypothesis that open access lands are not compatible with conservation of tree and shrub species diversity because of high anthropogenic activities. Springer Science+Business Media, Inc., 2006 Anthropogenic activities nationallicence Composition nationallicence Diameter class nationallicence Species richness nationallicence Uapaca kirkiana nationallicence Mwase Weston Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, Aas, Norway aut Bjørnstad Åsmund Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, Aas, Norway aut Bokosi James Department of Forestry and Horticulture, Bunda College of Agriculture, University of Malawi, P.O. Box 219, Lilongwe, Malawi aut Kwapata Moses Department of Forestry and Horticulture, Bunda College of Agriculture, University of Malawi, P.O. Box 219, Lilongwe, Malawi aut Stedje Brita Natural History Museum, Botanical Garden, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1172, 0318, Blindern, Oslo, Norway aut New Forests Kluwer Academic Publishers 33/3(2007-05-01), 297-307 0169-4286 33:3<297 2007 33 11056 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11056-006-9029-0 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11056-006-9029-0 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Mwase Weston Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, Aas, Norway aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Bjørnstad Åsmund Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, Aas, Norway aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Bokosi James Department of Forestry and Horticulture, Bunda College of Agriculture, University of Malawi, P.O. Box 219, Lilongwe, Malawi aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Kwapata Moses Department of Forestry and Horticulture, Bunda College of Agriculture, University of Malawi, P.O. Box 219, Lilongwe, Malawi aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Stedje Brita Natural History Museum, Botanical Garden, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1172, 0318, Blindern, Oslo, Norway aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- New Forests Kluwer Academic Publishers 33/3(2007-05-01), 297-307 0169-4286 33:3<297 2007 33 11056 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer