Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-9pm4c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T02:51:30.226Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Guinea–Congo lowland rain forest: an overview

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2011

G. W. Lawson
G. W. Lawson
Affiliation:
The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD
Get access

Extract

In a paper entitled ‘Africa – the odd man out’ Richards (1973) pointed out that of the three main regions of tropical rain forest he recognised, namely American, African and Indo–Malaysian, the African rain forest stands out as distinct from the others. He took this view largely on the comparative poverty of its flora, the wider distribution of African plants, and the poor representation of certain plant groups such as palms, orchids and trees of the family Lauraceae. In addition, Africa is relatively poorly endowed with some life forms such as lianes and epiphytes. He attributed the uniqueness of tropical Africa to a number of possible factors. In the first place, differences may be due to climate since the uniformly high rainfall, humidity, temperatures, and absence of a regular dry season that occur in parts of the other two tropical regions are evidently rare or lacking in Africa. A distinct dry season, often of over two months, is nearly always present, and even in the central Congo basin there is usually at least one month when rainfall is less than 100 mm. Secondly, the impact of human beings on vegetation has been longer and more sustained in Africa than elsewhere, so much so that the presence of any truly primeval or so-called virgin forest is very questionable. However, it is unlikely that present day climatic factors and human interference can wholly account for the unique position of African rain forest, and historical reasons must also be sought. Thus it seems probable that the vicissitudes of climate, recorded as arid and pluvial periods in African lake sediments, have been much greater than those in the other two regions in question.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Section B: Biological Sciences , Volume 104: Essays on the Ecology of the Guinea-Congo Rain Forest , 1996 , pp. 5 - 13
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aubréville, A. 1938. La forêt coloniale. Annales de l' Académic des Sciences Coloniale 9, 1–245.Google Scholar
Baker, H. G. 1970. Evolution in the tropics. Biotropica 2, 101–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bebwa, B. 1990. Biomasse et mineralomasses d'une jachere preforestiere de deux ans dans les environs de Kisangani (Zaïre). Belgium Journal of Botany 123, 92–102.Google Scholar
Denys, E. 1980. A tentative phytogeographical division of tropical Africa based on a mathematical analysis of distribution maps. Bulletin du jardin botanique national de Belgique 50, 465–504.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gentry, A. H. 1992. Tropical forest biodiversity: distributional patterns and their conservational significance. Oikos 63, 19–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hallé, F. & Oldeman, R. A. A. 1970. Essai sur l'Architecture et la dynamique de croissance des arbres tropicaux. Paris: Masson.Google Scholar
Hallé, F., Oldeman, R. A. A. & Tomlinson, P. B. 1978. Tropical trees and forests: An architectural analysis. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayward, D. F. 1990. The phenology and economic potential of Terminalia catappa L. in south central Ghana. Vegetatio 90, 125–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hopkins, H. C. & White, F. 1984. The ecology and chorology of Parkia in Africa. Bulletin du jardin botanique national de Belgique 54, 235–266.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobs, M. 1988. The tropical rain forest: a first encounter. London: Springer-Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jaffre, T. & Namur, Ch. de, 1983. Evolution de la biomasse vegetal epigée au cours de la succession secondaire dans le Sud-Ouest de la Côte d'Ivoire. Acta Oecologia 4, 259–72.Google Scholar
John, D. M. 1973. Accumulation and decay of litter and net production of forest in tropical West Africa. Oikos 24, 430–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lawson, G. W. 1970. Ecology and conservation in Ghana, pp. 1–21. Accra: Ghana Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Lawson, G. W. 1986. (Ed.) Plant ecology in West Africa – systems and processes. Chichester: Wiley.Google Scholar
Lawton, J. H. 1991. Are species useful? Oikos 62, 3–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lieberman, D. 1982. Seasonality and phenology in a dry tropical forest in Ghana. Journal of Ecology 70, 791–806.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Longman, K. A. & Jenik, J. 1987. Tropical forest and its environment (2nd Ed) Harlow : Longman, and New York: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Lubini, A. 1985. La foret marecageuse a Mitragyna stipulosa et Pycnanthus marchalionus dans la region de Kisangani (Haut-Zaïre). Bull. Jard. Bot. Nat. Belg. 55, 393–420.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lubini, A. & Kuschulaka, K. 1991. La forêt ombrophile semi-sempervirente a Celtis mildbraedii et Gambeya lacourtiana dans la region de Kitwit (Zaïre). Bulletin du jardin botanique national de Belgique 61, 305–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lubini, A. & Mandango, A. 1981. Étude phytosociologique et ecologique des forêts a Uapaca guineensi dans le nord-est du district forestière centrale (Zaïre). Bulletin du jardin botanique national de Belgique 51, 231–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mosango, O. M. & Lejoly, J. 1990. La forêt dense humide à Piptadeniastrum africanum et Celtis mildbraediides environs de Kisangani (Zaïre). Proc. 12th Plenary Meeting AETFAT. Inst. Allg. Bot. Hamburg 23, 853–70.Google Scholar
Okali, D. U. U. & Ola Adams, B. A. 1987. Tree population changes in treated rain forest at Omo forest reserve, south-western Nigeria. Journal of Tropical Ecology 3, 291–313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peters, C. R. 1990. African wild plants with rootstocks reported to be eaten raw: The Monocotyledons, Part 1. Proc. 12th Plenary Meeting AETFAT. Mitteilungen aus dem institut für allgemeine botanik in Hamburg 23, 935–52.Google Scholar
Raunkiaer, C. 1934. The life-forms of plants and statistical plant geography. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Richards, P. W. 1973. Africa, the ‘Odd man out’. In Meggers, B. J., Ayensu, E. S. & Duckworth, D. (eds.) Tropical forest ecosystems in Africa and South America, a comparitive review. Washington DC: Smithsonian Inst. Press.Google Scholar
Richards, P. W. 1952. The tropical rainforest. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Richel, T. 1990. Une application de l'analyse des profiles ecologiques à l'étude des aires de distribution de taxons vegetaux. Proc. 12th Plenary Meeting AETFAT. Mitteilungen aus dem institut für allgemeine botanik in Hamburg 23b, 767–76.Google Scholar
Riddoch, I., Grace, J., Fasehun, F. E., Riddoch, B. & Ladipo, D. O. 1991. Photosynthesis and successional status of seedlings in a semi-deciduous rain forest in Nigeria. Journal of Ecology 78, 491–503.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roughgarden, J., Running, S. W. & Matson, P. A. 1991. What does remote sensing do for ecology? Ecology 72, 1918–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Songwe, N. C., Fasehum, F. E. & Okali, D. U. U. 1988. Litterfall and productivity in a tropical rain forest, Southern Boukundu forest reserve, Cameroon. Journal of Tropical Ecology 4, 25–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spellmann, H. 1987. Forest classification, digital stand mapping and computation of area with the aid of aerial photography. Plant Research and Development 25, 69–84.Google Scholar
Swaine, M. D. & Hall, J. B. 1988. The mosaic theory of forest regeneration and the determination of forest composition in Ghana. Journal of Tropical Ecology 4, 253–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swaine, M. D. & Whitmore, T. C. 1988. On the definition of ecological species groups in tropical rain forests. Vegetatio 75, 81–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomlinson, P. B. 1983. Structural elements of the rain forest. In Golley, F.B. (Ed.) Ecosystems of the world. 14 A Tropical rain forest ecosystems – structure and function, pp. 9–28. Elsevier.Google Scholar
Tutin, C. G., Williamson, E. A., Rogers, M. E. & Fernandez, M. 1991. A case study of a plant – animal relationship: Cola lizae and lowland gorillas in the Lope Reserve, Gabon. Journal of Tropical Ecology 7, 181–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vanclay, J. K. 1991. Review: data requirements for developing growth models for tropical moist forests. Commonwealth Forestry Review 70, No. 224; 248–71.Google Scholar
Walter, H., Lieth, H. & Rehder, H. 1960. Klimadiagram – Weltatlas. Jena: Gustav Fischer.Google Scholar
White, F. 1979. The Guinea-Congolian region and its relationship to other phytochoria. Bulletin du jardin botanique national Belgique 49, 11–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, F. 1983. The vegetation of Africa. AETFAT/UNSO.Google Scholar
Whittaker, R. H. 1975. Communities and ecosystems. New York and London.Google Scholar