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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Conserv. Sci.
Sec. Plant Conservation
Volume 5 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fcosc.2024.1382843

Woody plants diversity and the associated provisioning ecosystem services across three contrasting forest management regimes in Southwest Ethiopia

Provisionally accepted
Zerihun Kebebew Zerihun Kebebew 1*Claire Ozanne Claire Ozanne 2
  • 1 College of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Jimma University, Jimma, Ethiopia
  • 2 University of Roehampton London, Roehampton, London, United Kingdom

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Woody plants are a source of provisioning ecosystem services. Coffee management impacted forest composition, structure and diversity. We studied the effect of coffee management intensification on woody plants and their associated provisioning ecosystem services under three contrasting forest management regimes in southwest Ethiopia. The study employed mixed approaches (vegetation assessment and ethnoecological study) to collect the data. Woody plants were collected from 189 plots, whereas, perceived local ecosystem services were identified by 136 individuals through an ethnoecological approach. The total number of woody plants recorded in the natural forest, coffee forest and coffee agroforest was 971, 945 and 521 respectively.Species richness in natural forest, coffee forest and coffee agroforest were 57, 54 and 53 respectively. The local people perceived 17 different provisioning ecosystem services collected from the three forest types. The result showed that there is a positive relationship between the diversity and use value of woody plants across the three forest management regimes. Coffee management intensification simplifies the stand structure, woody plant composition and ecosystem services of the forest. Plant use value increases towards coffee agroforest. Coffee agroforest can serve as repository of diversity and ecosystem services in southwest Ethiopia.

    Keywords: Coffee forest, Agroforest, use value, ethnoecology, Managed forest

    Received: 01 Mar 2024; Accepted: 01 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Kebebew and Ozanne. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Zerihun Kebebew, College of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Jimma University, Jimma, Ethiopia

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.