Structural analysis of the vascular flora of Lake Guiers, the largest freshwater reservoir surface of Senegal

Abstract

From systematic inventories of plant species, this article analyses the floristic composition, and biological and chorological spectra of taxa identified in Lake Guiers following the building of major dams on the Senegal River in the late 1980s; they have improved storage of fresh water and the maintenance of limnimetric height level throughout the year. We have listed 101 species belonging to 64 genera and 30 families. The dicotyledons are more than twice as numerous as the monocotyledons, and the pteridophytes make up 10%. The most diverse families are, in order of size: Poaceae, Cyperaceae, Fabaceae, Amaranthaceae, Convolvulaceae and Oenothoraceae. Half of the families are represented by at least two species. The helogeophytes and therophytes represent half of the biological forms while supernatant hydrophytes constitute only 7% of the flora. The vast majority of species have broad geographical, pantropical and palaeotropical distributions. Cosmopolitan and Sudano-Guinean-Zambezian taxa occur in the sa...