Effects of best land management practices on the structure, composition and diversity of woody vegetation in agroforestry parklands: case of Dan Saga and Tabofatt villages in Niger republic

Abstract

The large-scale use of best land management practices has been instrumental in the accession of recent regreening in certain Sahelian areas. This study therefore aimed at highlighting the effect of the wide use of these practices on the structural and ecological parameters of the woody flora in agroforestry parklands. To this end, an inventory of ligneous vegetation was carried out on radial transects in an East–West and North–South direction in the villages clusters of Dan Saga and Tabofatt in Niger Republic. A variance comparison test was applied on the values from plots with practice compare to those from plots without practice (controls). In Dan Saga site, the results obtained show the significant effect of the practice of assisted natural tree regeneration on the density of trees (97 against 58 plants/ha for the control plots), on the basal area (3.04 against 1.98 m2/ha for the control plots), on regeneration (61.96% against 40.91% for the controls) and on floristic diversity (2.93 against 2.41 bits for the control plots) with a clear dominance of Combretaceae. On the other hand, this effect is relatively less significant in the case of Tabofatt site’s where the practice of planting trees coupled with water and runoff collection structures induced positive effect particularly on the basal area (2.29 against 1.90 m2/ha for plots controls), on the structure of the vegetation stood by the abundance of plants with average diameter (class from 5 to 10 cm) as well as the species diversity (2.54 against 2.18 bits for the controls) with a dominance of species of the Mimosaceae family. These results can be used as decision support tools to guide actions to scale up regreening in the Sahelian context.