No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
Notes on the plant endemics of the quartzitic slopes of Mt Chimanimani (Mozambique & Zimbabwe), and a new, Critically Endangered species, Empogona jenniferae (Rubiaceae-Coffeeae)
Abstract
Empogona jenniferae is described from the upper quartzitic slopes of Mt Chimanimani on both sides of the Zimbabwe-Mozambique border, a prospective Tropical Important Plant Area. Its conservation status is assessed as Critically Endangered under the 2012 IUCN criteria. A figure and notes on the endemic plant species of Chimanimani are provided. Two additional names in Empogona, E. congesta and E. congesta subsp. chasei are published.
... The country's protracted instability caused by the war of independence (1964 -1975) and the subsequent civil war (1977 -1992) resulted in a long period in which biodiversity research was neglected. However, in the last two decades a new impetus in botanical studies has risen (Cheek et al. 2018 This paper presents an updated checklist of Mozambique's vascular plants serving as a basis to guide further botanical research and to support biodiversity conservation planning. For each listed taxon, data such as the nomenclature, taxonomic classification, distribution, local occurrence details, life forms, endemism, and extinction risk are reported. ...
... material 1, accounts for 7,099 taxa (5,957 species, 605 subspecies, 537 varieties), belonging to 226 families and 1,746 genera. These findings, significantly increasing the record of 3,932 vascular plant taxa in Mozambique registered in the previous checklist (da Silva et al. 2004), can be related to the recent increase of botanical exploration in the country (Cheek et al. 2018) and to the availability of freely accessible online botanical databases. The larger group of plants recorded is the angiosperms, 200 families and 1,655 genera, representing 95.8% (6,804) of the listed taxa. ...
An updated checklist of Mozambique's vascular plants is presented. It was compiled referring to several information sources such as existing literature, relevant online databases and herbaria collections. The checklist includes 7,099 taxa (5,957 species, 605 subspecies, 537 varieties), belonging to 226 families and 1,746 genera. There are 6,804 angiosperms, 257 pteridophytes, and 38 gymnosperms. A total of 6,171 taxa are native to Mozambique, while 602 are introduced and the remaining 326 taxa were considered as uncertain status. The endemism level for Mozambique's flora was assessed at 9.59%, including 278 strict-endemic taxa and 403 near-endemic. 58.2% of taxa are herbaceous, while shrubs and trees account respectively for 26.5% and 9.2% of the taxa. The checklist also includes ferns (3.6%), lianas (1.7%), subshrubs (0.5%) and cycads (0.3%). Fabaceae, Poaceae and Asteraceae are the three most represented families, with 891, 543 and 428 taxa, respectively. The extinction risk of 1,667 taxa is included, with 158 taxa listed as Vulnerable, 119 as Endangered and as 24 Critically Endangered. The geographical distribution, known vernacular names and plants traditional uses are also recorded.
... Mt Namba lies within the northwestern limits of the Great Escarpment of southern Africa (Clark et al. 2011), which stretches from western Angola, through Namibia, South Africa, Lesotho and eSwatini to the Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe and neighbouring Mozambique. Plant diversity and endemism of the northeastern limit of the Great Escarpment have been recently documented (Chimanimani: Wursten et al. 2017, Cheek et al. 2018Nyanga: Clark et al. 2017;and Bvumba: Timberlake et al. 2020), but corresponding documentation of the Angolan portion of the escarpment is still lacking. The presence of Afromontane forest relicts in the Angolan highlands was noted by Barbosa (1970), Huntley (1974, 2011), White (1978, 1983 and Huntley and Matos (1994), but there have been no detailed surveys of these forests or regions. ...
A rapid assessment of Mt Namba recorded 271 plant taxa including six new records for Angola and 22 new records for the province of Cuanza-Sul. The mountain has the most extensive tracts of intact Afromontane forest in the country amid a mosaic
of species-rich montane rocky grassland and miombo woodland at lower elevations. Range extensions of two shrubby species of Compositae reveal floristic affinities with the discrete elevated escarpment to the west of Lubango in Huíla Province nearly 400 km south of Mt Namba. We suggest that the largely intact ecological units we observed on Mt Namba might inform speculation as to the potential vegetation of the Serra da Chela which, due to local population pressures, is now mostly devoid of woody vegetation. The extent of threatened Afromontane forest vegetation in Angola and the presence of local endemic Barleria namba described from the mountain, qualify Mt Namba as an Important Plant Area for Angola. It has already been designated an Important Bird Area for the country. Araujia sericifera, an alien species of conservation concern due to its potential as an invasive, is recorded from Angola for the first time.
... Floristically, 7099 taxa (5957 species, 605 subspecies, 537 varieties), 87% of which are native to Mozambique (Odorico et al. 2022), are known in the country. This knowledge on floristic diversity has rapidly grown in the most recent decades, due to the novel increase of botanical exploration in the country (Cheek et al. 2018) and to the free access to international botanical data allowed by online botanical databases. Mozambique's fauna diversity, on the other hand, still remains broadly unknown, despite its richness. ...
Mozambique biodiversity richness plays a pivotal role to achieve the sustainable development of the country. However, Mozambique’s flora and fauna diversity still remains broadly unknown and poorly documented. To properly address this issue, one of the strategic needs expressed by the Mozambican institutions was the development of a national biodiversity data repository to aggregate, manage and make data available online. Thus, a sustainable infrastructure for the standardisation, aggregation, organisation and sharing of primary biodiversity data was developed. Named the “Biodiversity Network of Mozambique” (BioNoMo), such a tool serves as a national repository of biodiversity data and aggregates occurrence records of plants and animals in the country obtained from floristic and faunistic observations and from specimens of biological collections. In this paper, the authors present the structure and data of BioNoMO, including software details, the process of data gathering and aggregation, the taxonomic coverage and the WebGIS development. Currently, aggregating a total of 273,172 records, including 85,092 occurrence records of plants and 188,080 occurrence records of animals (41.2% terrestrial, 58,8% aquatic), BioNoMo represents the largest aggregator of primary biodiversity data in Mozambique and it is planned to grow further by aggregating new datasets.
... In addition, it is where the highest number of endemics in any one site in southern tropical Africa is found (e.g., Wursten et al., 2017), being considered an IPA (Darbyshire et al., 2019). The topography and local geology determine the presence of a high number of plant species, most of which restricted to soils derived from quartzite sandstones that are very poor in nutrients (e.g., deficient in phosphorus) Cheek et al., 2018). It should be noted that the patterns of distribution and species richness maps presented in this study may be spatially biased due to uneven botanical collection effort, as shown by several studies (e.g., Romeiras et al., 2014). ...
Mozambique supports a high diversity of native legume species, including many Crop Wild Relatives (CWRs). Among them, the still understudied genus Vigna is a particularly notable and promising donor of favorable traits for crop improvement. This study aims to provide an updated overview of Vigna CWRs diversity in Mozambique, defining a conservation strategy for priority target taxa and areas. A checklist of Vigna taxa was prepared and using five criteria (taxonomic group, ethnobotanical value, global and regional distributions, and ex situ conservation status), the prioritization of each taxon was determined. The distribution of Vigna native to Mozambique was studied and diversity hotspots were detected; gaps in in situ conservation were analyzed by overlaying species distribution with Mozambique’s Protected Areas Network. Maps predicting the differences between future conditions and baseline values were performed to investigate expected changes in temperature and precipitation in Vigna’s occurrence areas. There are 21 Vigna native taxa occurring in Mozambique, with the Chimanimani Mountains and Mount Gorongosa, as diversity hotspots for the genus. Following the IUCN Red List criteria, 13 taxa are of Least Concern, while the remaining eight are currently Not Evaluated. According to their priority level for further conservation actions, 24% of the taxa are of high priority, 67% of medium priority, and 9% of low priority. The important hotspot of Chimanimani Mountains is among the areas most affected by the predicted future increase in temperature and reduction of rainfall. The obtained distribution and species richness maps, represent a relevant first tool to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of Protected Areas and IPAs of Mozambique for the conservation of Vigna CWRs. The in situ gap analysis showed that 52% of the Vigna taxa are unprotected; this could be overcome by establishing reserves in Vigna diversity centers, considering the different types of habitats to which the different taxa are adapted, and by increasing in situ protection for the high priority ones. The ex situ conservation of Vigna is very limited and storing seed collections of these CWRs, is an essential component in global food security, as some taxa seem suitable as donors of genetic material to increase resistance to pests and diseases, or to drought and salinity. Overall, we provide recommendations for future research, collecting, and management, to conserve Vigna CWR in Mozambique, providing new data for their sustainable use in crop enhancement, as well as proposing measures for future conservation programs.
... The third cross-border Centre of Endemism is the Chimanimani-Nyanga (or Manica) Highlands that run along the border with Zimbabwe and form the north-eastern-most extent of the Great Escarpment of southern Africa (Clark et al. 2011). These mountains are well known for their rich floras and high plant endemism (Wild 1964;Mapaura 2002;Clark et al. 2017;Wursten et al. 2017;Cheek et al. 2018). The fourth comprises the larger massifs of the belt of inselbergs running from southern Malawi to Zambézia and Nampula Provinces of northern Mozambique (Bayliss et al. 2014). ...
An annotated checklist of the 271 strict-endemic taxa (235 species) and 387 near-endemic taxa (337 species) of vascular plants in Mozambique is provided. Together, these taxa constitute c. 9.3% of the total currently known flora of Mozambique and include five strict-endemic genera ( Baptorhachis , Emicocarpus , Gyrodoma , Icuria and Micklethwaitia ) and two near-endemic genera ( Triceratella and Oligophyton ). The mean year of first publication of these taxa is 1959, with a marked increase in description noted following the onset of the two major regional floristic programmes, the “Flora of Tropical East Africa” and “Flora Zambesiaca”, and an associated increase in botanical collecting effort. New taxa from Mozambique continue to be described at a significant rate, with 20 novelties described in 2018. Important plant families for endemic and near-endemic taxa include Fabaceae, Rubiaceae and Euphorbiaceae s.s. There is a high congruence between species-rich plant families and endemism with the notable exceptions of the Poaceae, which is the second-most species rich plant family, but outside of the top ten families in terms of endemism, and the Euphorbiaceae, which is the seventh-most species rich plant family, but third in terms of endemism. A wide range of life-forms are represented in the endemic and near-endemic flora, with 49% being herbaceous or having herbaceous forms and 55% being woody or having woody forms. Manica Province is by far the richest locality for near-endemic taxa, highlighting the importance of the cross-border Chimanimani-Nyanga (Manica) Highlands shared with Zimbabwe. A total of 69% of taxa can be assigned to one of four cross-border Centres of Endemism: the Rovuma Centre, the Maputaland Centre sensu lato, and the two mountain blocks, Chimanimani-Nyanga and Mulanje-Namuli-Ribaue. Approximately 50% of taxa have been assessed for their extinction risk and, of these, just over half are globally threatened (57% for strict-endemics), with a further 10% (17% for strict-endemics) currently considered to be Data Deficient, highlighting the urgent need for targeted conservation of Mozambique’s unique flora. This dataset will be a key resource for ongoing efforts to identify “Important Plant Areas – IPAs” in Mozambique, and to promote the conservation and sustainable management of these critical sites and species, thus enabling Mozambique to meet its commitments under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
... The high Chimanimani Mountains have long been renowned for their high botanical endemism, particularly associated with the extensive outcrops of nutrient-deficient quartzites (Wild 1964;van Wyk and Smith 2001;Timberlake et al. 2016b;Wursten et al. 2017;Cheek et al. 2018). Much less well known is the botanical importance of the low elevation foothills of these mountains (c. ...
Synsepalum chimanimani S.Rokni & I.Darbysh., sp. nov. , a small tree endemic to the forests of the southern foothills of the Chimanimani Mountains of Mozambique and Zimbabwe, is described and illustrated. The differences in morphology and distribution between the new species and the related S. kaessneri and S. muelleri , with which it has been confused, are clarified. The new species is globally Endangered due to ongoing habitat loss within its restricted range. The botanical importance and conservation of the Chimanimani foothills is also discussed, and they are highlighted as a candidate Important Plant Area.
The Chimanimani Mountains, located at the Mozambique-Zimbabwe border, are geologically unique in that they consist of quartzites giving rise to peaks and outcrops between zones of schist supporting grasslands. The nutrient-poor quartzitic soils house a high number of endemic plant species. One of these is Sericanthe chimanimaniensis, which is here described as new for science. We give a detailed description and distribution map, illustrations, information on ecology and phenology, and an assessment on the conservation status. An identification key to closely allied species is presented.
Cola cheringoma is described from the limestone gorge forest of the Cheringoma Plateau in Sofala Province of Central Mozambique. Tentatively treated previously as C. clavata Mast., it differs in being restricted to limestone substrate, the leaves drying white-green below (not on sandy soils, drying dark grey-brown). The tepal number of female flowers is 5 (not (5 –) 6), staminode number 5 (not 8), and the indumentum of the outer perianth covers only 50 – 60% of the surface with two distinct hair classes (not 100% coverage with a single hair type). The species is assessed as EN B2ab(iii) using the IUCN 2012 standard due to threats from the low number of locations, quarrying, and habitat modification. The Cola species growing in forest on limestone in tropical Africa are mapped and reviewed with respect to their status as obligate or facultative calcicoles, and with respect to their probable evolutionary origin. Based on morphological characters, adaptation to limestone habitats has probably occurred at least four times in the genus. Forests on limestone are rare and threatened in tropical Africa: only thirteen locations are known with certainty: these occur in Kenya (10 locations), Tanzania (2 locations) and Mozambique (1 location).
Olinia chimanimani T. Shah & I. Darbysh. is described as a distinct species from the Chimanimani mountains in Mozambique and Zimbabwe, based on morphological evidence. It differs from other species of Olinia sect. Rochetiana in its smaller leaf size, sessile leaf attachment, glabrous flowers and galled flowers becoming narrowly swollen without prominent tubercles when infected. A species description, key and illustration, distribution map and ecological information are provided. The populations have been studied in the field, and it is only known from two locations. It is potentially under threat from burning due to human activity associated with illegal artisanal mining activity, and thus has been evaluated as Endangered (EN) using the IUCN Red List categories and criteria.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.