Biodiversity and Ecology of African Vegetation

Dear Colleagues,

African ecosystems comprise a wealthy repository of biodiversity with a high proportion of native and endemic plant species, which makes them biologically unique and providers of a wide range of ecosystem services. The continent has a large diversity of plant and animal life with several biodiversity hotspots. African vegetation has developed in direct response to various environmental factors such as rainfall, temperature, topography, geology, geomorphology, and soil. Other factors that influence vegetation composition and structure include fire, agriculture, mining and grazing and browsing by livestock and wildlife.

Humans in both rural and urban areas depend on vegetation for their survival and welfare. However, large parts of the natural ecosystems of the African continent are being degraded due to the growing impacts of climate change and other anthropogenic actions, as well as environmental problems. The loss of habitats and biodiversity affects wildlife, livelihoods, water supply and food security, which directly impacts human survival whilst also reducing the resilience of these sensitive ecosystems. These losses also include medicinal plants and our knowledge of their impacts on humans and wildlife.

For the conservation and preservation of these various ecosystems, it is critical that we understand and describe the interactions between the abiotic and biotic components and how they regulate the ecology of plant communities. In addition, it is important that the different plant communities are classified and described, which would provide knowledge and insight regarding their biodiversity, vegetation structure, and reaction to various management interventions. Wildlife directly affects ecosystems in terms of their structure, species composition and dispersal. It is therefore equally important that the interaction between wildlife and vegetation is studied and described.

This Special Issue, entitled “Biodiversity and Ecology of African Vegetation”, will focus on plant community classification and description, plant–wildlife interactions, biodiversity, anthropogenic influence/interactions, and indigenous knowledge systems within the African context.

Dr. Hugo Bezuidenhout
Prof. Dr. Leslie Brown
Guest Editors

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• African vegetation
• biodiversity
• African ecosystems
• plant–wildlife interactions
• plant community classification