Land use pattern and fauna composition in the relics of Maba forest, Ogun State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study of land use pattern and fauna composition in the relics of Maba forest as the permanent site of the Redeemers’ University (RUN’s) was carried out to determine distribution and abundance of the wildlife species within the niche level and effect that such developmental pattern will have on the general ecological balance of the area. The study entailed complete ground truithing of the entire ecosystem, which is 500 ha square in area and stand to be one of the remaining natural forests in the southwestern part of the country that is rich in biodiversity the method adopted for wildlife diversity study is analytical habitat associations (AHS), aimed at species habitat studies and to discover which part of the habitat is preferentially used by specific species of animal. Other information was obtained through structured questionnaire from 150 inhabitants at the sites. The study revealed that forest ecosystem at Maba can be classified into five according to their physiognomy and utilization rate. These are riparian forest (18.5%) plantation (12.5%), secondary forest (16.5%), farm fallow (25.5%) and arable farm land (27.0%). The sample representative of the physiognomy in all the ten transect showed that the herbaceous vegetation (grassland) has the highest mean percentage (31.8%) while others according to descending order are as follows: woodland (27.7%), bare ground (16.2%), canopy cover (15.8%) and the ground cover (10.5%). Mona monkey (Cercopithecus Mona) has the highest relative mean population (2.8) while species like baboon (Papio anubis), puff adder (Bitis arietans) and scorpion have relative mean population of 0.2 each. However the relative mean composition of all fauna species by the representative habitats indicated that riparian forest (11.5) has the highest, while the least was recorded in secondary forest (0.30). Bird species with the highest mean composition is village weaver (13.6) while the least is king fisher (0.2). However the mean composition of birds with the different habitat showed that forest plantation has the highest (4.8) and the least mean bird composition was in farm fallow (0.47). The common species hunted by inhabitants are grasscutter (Thryonomys swinderianus) (15.0%), birds (10.0%), squirrel (Xerus erythropus) (15.0%) and monkeys (Cercopithedae spp.) (8.0%). It can therefore be concluded that certain habitats (riparian and plantation forest) supported higher diversities of species because they contain several species of relatively high conservation concerned species (Mona monkey, baboon, monitor lizard and several avifauna). Such ecological significance species would be adversely affected during the land use pattern for institutional purpose. Key words: Maba forest, habitat, species, eco-development, Redeemer’s University.