Abstract
The Aberdare Ranges Forest, located in the Central highlands of Kenya, is an isolated volcanic mountain in the East African Rift Valley with unique flora. Despite its refugial importance to rare and endemic plant species, the diversity of plants in the Aberdare Ranges Forest remains poorly understood. The checklist presented here is a collation of data obtained from multiple floristic surveys and from herbarium specimen collections from the forest. A total of 1260 vascular plants taxa representing 136 families, 613 genera, 67 subspecies and 63 varieties are documented. The ferns comprised 84 species, lycophytes seven, gymnosperms six and angiosperms were 1163 taxa. This represents 17.9% of the Kenyan taxa, 1.7% of the African taxa and 0.3% of all the vascular plants known in the world. A total of 18 taxa were endemic and 14 taxa were found to be threatened globally. The life form, voucher specimen(s), habitat and distribution range of each taxon and a brief analysis of taxa diversity is presented in this checklist. This is the first comprehensive inventory of vascular plants in the entire Aberdare Ranges, providing a solid basis for more sustainable management and improved conservation of this montane forest. The checklist is also an important contribution to the world checklist of plants required by the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation.
Highlights
In order to halt the continuing loss of plant diversity, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), through the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC), has over the past two decades advocated for intense exploration and documentation of plants species with the aim of achieving a complete world checklist of flora in the near future (COP 2002; Paton et al 2008; Joppa et al 2013; Sharrock et al 2014)
Despite the enormous socio-economic values attached to the Aberdare Ranges (AR) ecosystem (Lambrechts et al 2003; Louppe et al 2009; Ark and Group 2011), the future of biodiversity in this forest is increasingly threatened by adverse land-use changes and exploitation of natural resources within the forest (KWS 2010; Kipkoech et al 2019)
The ferns correspond to 12.9% of the 706 ferns recorded in Africa, gymnosperms represent 13.6% of 44 African species and angiosperms corresponded to 3.6% of 32,424 and 2.3% of 50,136 angiosperms in Tropical Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa, respectively (Klopper et al 2007; MEWNR 2015)
Summary
In order to halt the continuing loss of plant diversity, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), through the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC), has over the past two decades advocated for intense exploration and documentation of plants species with the aim of achieving a complete world checklist of flora in the near future (COP 2002; Paton et al 2008; Joppa et al 2013; Sharrock et al 2014). Despite the enormous socio-economic values attached to the AR ecosystem (Lambrechts et al 2003; Louppe et al 2009; Ark and Group 2011), the future of biodiversity in this forest is increasingly threatened by adverse land-use changes and exploitation of natural resources within the forest (KWS 2010; Kipkoech et al 2019). The goal of this study was to provide a broad checklist of vascular plants in the entire AR Forest. Specific objectives were to (i) document the vascular plants of the entire AR Forest, (ii) document the endemic and threatened vascular plants in the AR Forest and (iii) document the life forms and habitats of all the vascular plants in the AR Forest
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