{"key":"39f2ab68-ca28-4c01-be66-e44185ad21ac","installationKey":"7092f0d0-91a2-4734-8dc7-3e688df82d04","publishingOrganizationKey":"1d594620-2249-4532-ad9e-1b06f3a988d2","doi":"10.15468/5ng4yk","external":false,"numConstituents":0,"type":"OCCURRENCE","subtype":"OBSERVATION","title":"Woody species composition and diversity of riparian vegetation along the Walga River, Southwestern Ethiopia","description":"\n            The dataset represents the status of woody species composition and diversity along the Walga River of Wonchi, Southwestern Ethiopia. Fifty quadrats of 10m X 50m were laid at 500m interval through systematic sampling method along river line. Vegetation height (>2m) and DBH (>2.5m) of only tree species were measured, and altitude, ecological disturbance such as, grazing intensity and human impacts were included as main environmental variables at each of the sampled plots. The data was analyzed using different R statistical packages. Ninety-nine woody vascular plant species belong to 81 genera and 45 families were recorded in Walga riparian vegetation. Only 10% of species were endemic to Flora area. \n        ","language":"eng","citation":{"text":"Meragiaw M (2025). Woody species composition and diversity of riparian vegetation along the Walga River, Southwestern Ethiopia. Addis Ababa University. Occurrence dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/5ng4yk accessed via GBIF.org on 2026-10-14.","citationProvidedBySource":false},"contactsCitation":[{"key":6187619,"abbreviatedName":"Meragiaw M","firstName":"Misganaw","lastName":"Meragiaw","roles":["ORIGINATOR"],"userId":[]}],"lockedForAutoUpdate":false,"createdBy":"1d594620-2249-4532-ad9e-1b06f3a988d2","modifiedBy":"crawler.gbif.org","created":"2025-07-30T08:16:03.120+00:00","modified":"2025-07-30T08:17:03.781+00:00","contacts":[{"key":6187619,"type":"ORIGINATOR","primary":true,"userId":[],"firstName":"Misganaw","lastName":"Meragiaw","position":[],"email":["misganme@gmail.com"],"phone":["+251912848164"],"homepage":[],"organization":"Addis Ababa University","address":[],"city":"Addis Ababa","country":"ET","postalCode":"3434","createdBy":"crawler.gbif.org","modifiedBy":"crawler.gbif.org","created":"2025-07-30T08:17:03.762+00:00","modified":"2025-07-30T08:17:03.762+00:00"},{"key":6187620,"type":"ADMINISTRATIVE_POINT_OF_CONTACT","primary":true,"userId":[],"firstName":"Hanny Lidetu","lastName":"Solomon","position":["Data Steward"],"email":["hanny.lidetu@aau.edu.et"],"phone":["+251991433277"],"homepage":[],"organization":"Addis Ababa University","address":[],"city":"Addis Ababa","country":"ET","postalCode":"3434","createdBy":"crawler.gbif.org","modifiedBy":"crawler.gbif.org","created":"2025-07-30T08:17:03.764+00:00","modified":"2025-07-30T08:17:03.764+00:00"}],"endpoints":[{"key":1129261,"type":"DWC_ARCHIVE","url":"https://cloud.gbif.org/africa/archive.do?r=woody_composition","createdBy":"1d594620-2249-4532-ad9e-1b06f3a988d2","modifiedBy":"1d594620-2249-4532-ad9e-1b06f3a988d2","created":"2025-07-30T08:16:03.257+00:00","modified":"2025-07-30T08:16:03.257+00:00","machineTags":[]},{"key":1129260,"type":"EML","url":"https://cloud.gbif.org/africa/eml.do?r=woody_composition","createdBy":"1d594620-2249-4532-ad9e-1b06f3a988d2","modifiedBy":"1d594620-2249-4532-ad9e-1b06f3a988d2","created":"2025-07-30T08:16:03.230+00:00","modified":"2025-07-30T08:16:03.230+00:00","machineTags":[]}],"machineTags":[{"key":33144739,"namespace":"crawler.gbif.org","name":"crawl_attempt","value":"56","createdBy":"crawler.gbif.org","created":"2026-10-12T03:44:46.254+00:00"}],"tags":[],"identifiers":[{"key":445261,"type":"URL","identifier":"https://cloud.gbif.org/africa/resource?r=woody_composition","createdBy":"crawler.gbif.org","created":"2025-07-30T08:17:03.766+00:00","primary":false}],"comments":[],"bibliographicCitations":[],"curatorialUnits":[],"taxonomicCoverages":[],"geographicCoverages":[{"description":"This study was carried out along the Walga River of Wonchi District, Southwest Shewa Administrative Zone of Oromia Regional State, 08031.752’N; 037055.894’E to 08047.122’N; 037051.796’E with altitude ranges from 1976–3078 m a.s.l.","boundingBox":{"minLatitude":-90.0,"maxLatitude":90.0,"minLongitude":-180.0,"maxLongitude":180.0,"globalCoverage":true}}],"temporalCoverages":[],"keywordCollections":[{"thesaurus":"GBIF Dataset Type Vocabulary: http://rs.gbif.org/vocabulary/gbif/dataset_type_2015-07-10.xml","keywords":["Occurrence"]},{"thesaurus":"GBIF Dataset Subtype Vocabulary: http://rs.gbif.org/vocabulary/gbif/dataset_subtype.xml","keywords":["Observation"]}],"project":{"title":"Building capacity within biodiversity data between Ethiopia and GBIF nodes in Sweden and Finland","identifier":"CESP2024-013","contacts":[{"type":"POINT_OF_CONTACT","primary":false,"userId":[],"firstName":"Veronika","lastName":"Johansson","position":[],"email":[],"phone":[],"homepage":[],"address":[]}],"awards":[],"relatedProjects":[],"abstract":"Biodiversity is crucial for maintaining a healthy environment, ensuring food security, and building resilience, especially in developing countries such as Ethiopia. Rich in biodiversity and traditional farming systems, Ethiopia hosts the Eastern Afromontane biodiversity hotspot as well as the Horn of Africa biodiversity hotspot, which are critical for the Arabica coffee wild gene pool, but one of the least developed globally. Conserving biodiversity in Ethiopia requires robust evidence, skills, and policies, and quality data production and effective mobilization to data aggregators like GBIF are essential.\n\nThe biodiversity data in Ethiopia is available in fragmented forms across various institutions, limiting access, especially for policymakers and practitioners. This bottleneck is largely due to the need for skills in developing and managing databases and making data available in an integrated manner at national, regional, and global scales. In addition, there is a shortage of analytical skills in producing quality scientific data and knowledge.\n\nThis project aims to extend the work initiated in 2017 by the EU-funded GBIF Biodiversity Information for Development project BIDERSE and to address challenges by providing capacity-building training and knowledge transfer, enabling stakeholders to mobilize, manage, and use data according to global best practices. The key stakeholders identified for establishing a national biodiversity platform will act as a basis for this initiative."},"samplingDescription":{"studyExtent":"The study was conducted along Walga River in Wonchi, Southwestern Ethiopia.","sampling":"The riparian vegetation data was collected through systematic sampling technique on both sides of Walga River bank with some portion of the flows from mid April to the mid of June, 2017. In total, 50 (10 m x 50 m each) quadrats were laid out at an interval of 500 m gap both sides of the river. Four plots were laid out downstream in the nearest three kebeles (Fig 1) to fill up the gaps of few unreachable steep areas. The present study was restricted to only tree and shrub growth forms for their bigger canopy size and dominant composition of the riparian zone. Herein, herbaceous plant species were not included because they were very rare in the river banks. One of the reasons may be the presence of over grazing and the seasonal growth of some species. All woody plant species within the quadrats were recorded with their local names. They were identified using the Flora of Ethiopia and Eritrea; and finally confirmed by experts before deposited at the national Herbarium (ETH). Height (≥ 2.5 m) and Diameter at Breast Height (DBH ≥ 2.5 cm) were measured at 1.3 m, as described by Woldu et al.[13] for 30 tree species only by using Suunto clinometers and diameter tape respectively. Individuals of the other shrub, both shrub and tree forms of species were not considered to this analysis because they were not qualified for the aforementioned height and DBH measures. Cover abundance was estimated to all species following the modified 1–9 Braun-Blanquet scale.\n\nEnvironmental data such as, altitude and geographic coordinates were recorded for each of the 50 quadrats using GARMIN GPS 72. In addition, ecological disturbances such as grazing and browsing intensity and human impacts (cutting tree for firewood, producing charcoal, and burning of vegetation for expansion of agriculture) were noted as present or absent. The status of negative human interference was estimated through etic approach following Hadera, and 0–3 subjective scales are designated as: 0 = nil; 1 = low; 2 = moderate; and 3 = heavy. Likewise,\nlivestock grazing intensity was estimated following Woldu and Backeus [32] as: 0 = nil; 1 = slight; 2 = moderate and 3 = heavy and 4 = destructive.","methodSteps":["Fifty quadrats of 10m x 50 m were laid at 500 m interval through systematic sampling method along the river\nline. Vegetation height (≥2.5 m) and DBH (≥2.5 cm) of only tree species were measured, and altitude, ecological disturbances such as, grazing intensity and human impacts were included as main environmental variables at each of the sampled plots. The data was analyzed using different R statistical packages."]},"countryCoverage":[],"collections":[],"dataDescriptions":[{"name":"Woody species composition and diversity of riparian vegetation along the Walga River, Southwestern Ethiopia","url":"https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0204733","format":"Research Article"}],"dataLanguage":"eng","pubDate":"2025-07-30T00:00:00.000+00:00","maintenanceUpdateFrequency":"UNKNOWN","maintenanceDescription":"","license":"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","dwca":{"coreType":"http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/Occurrence","extensions":[],"modified":"2026-07-11T23:52:56.503+00:00"},"approximateCounts":{"occurrenceCount":99}}