Vegetation ecology and biomass
On the first look, the church forests of Ethiopia represent largely intact forest ecosystems, and are valuable habitats for numerous animal and plant species. However, most of these forests might be affected by serious human disturbances, such as grazing, selective logging and charcoal production. In this working package, the team analysed the vegetation structure (species composition, regeneration, disturbance) based on standardized recording plots scattered across and beyond the forest. In addition, students will estimate biomass for the respective study plots, as CO2 storage is a very important component in forest conservation – in times of global warming. This working package is mainly supervised by Christine Schmitt (University of Passau) and Habtamu Deffersha (BDU), in close collaboration with Solomon Girmay and Getasew Moges (BDU). The following students were involved: Bahiru Gedamu, Addisalem Getahun, Kerebih Aregew, Cosman Liesa, Biedermann Andreas, Zora Sabisch.