Assessing the Impact of Road and Land Use on Species Diversity of Trees, Shrubs, Herbs and Grasses in the Mountain Landscape in Southern Africa

Mountain landscape, described as a global biodiversity hotspot due to high endemism, is threatened by land-use change, including management and modification of vegetation. However, there little knowledge about how road land use affect plant diversity in mountains landscapes, particularly southern Africa. Previous studies have studied the impact or on species separately concentrated single species. Here we compare regenerated trees, shrubs, herbaceous plant, grasses among Forest, Fallow, Agriculture, Road Moribane Forest Reserve (MFR), Eastern Chimanimani landscape Mozambique. To assess change affects diversity, conducted 45 transects along roadside randomly established 24 quadrats Agriculture fields Fallow 26 pristine Forest. In each transect quadrats, recorded occurrence four life forms (regenerated herbaceous, grass species) determine alpha beta-diversity across land-uses, assessed invasiveness Species composition varied significantly land-uses types. Roadside had higher highest number invasive (138 total all forms; 31 species), following (72; 30), (81; 20), (78; 19). There was no similarity between roadsides other land-uses. Furthermore, average turnover for Fallow. Among plants, most important form with 143 species, 86 shrubs 86, trees 65 The pattern makes more diversified study area and, result, increase richness replacement. This unique collecting analyzing data different linked range types within small region mountain