Libro

Descripción

Sierra Leone is home to two species of trees from the genus Guibourtia namely copallifera and leonensis. Leonensis appears to be the more widely distributed of the two, but neither is common and knowledge on the distribution, density, population data and threats regarding these species is sadly deficient. Guibourtia copallifera Benn was extensively exploited as a source of gum copal. Its geographic distribution in Sierra Leone is now restricted to a few square kilometers in a single badly degraded forest reserve. A series of seed rain experiments were conducted to quantify its seed dispersal potential. Transects of seed traps were laid out and a total of 1,164,880 seeds were collected. Seeds from a further 85 species were collected. The majority of species were wind dispersed followed by terrestrial animals, bats and birds. G. copallifera seeds were the most abundant, followed by Nesogordonia papaveriefera (A.Chev.), Hymenocardia lyrata Tul. and Memecylon normandii Jac.-Fél. Leguminosae-Caesalpiniaceae had the most species followed by Euphorbiaceae, Apocynaceae, Rubiaceae and Sterculiaceae. There is no statistically significant difference between the transects (p>0.05, df=79, F=0.023) or the types of traps (p>0.05, df=118, t=0.089).