A checklist of vascular plants of the W National Park in Burkina Faso, including the adjacent hunting zones of Tapoa-Djerma and Kondio

Blandine Nacoulma; Marco Schmidt; Karen Hahn; Adjima Thiombiano

doi:10.3897/BDJ.8.e54205

Biodiversity Data Journal : Taxonomic Paper

PDF

Taxonomic Paper

A checklist of vascular plants of the W National Park in Burkina Faso, including the adjacent hunting zones of Tapoa-Djerma and Kondio

Blandine M. I. Nacoulma^‡, Marco Schmidt^§,|, Karen Hahn^¶, Adjima Thiombiano^‡

‡ Université Joseph Ki-Zerbo, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

§ Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

| Palmengarten, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

¶ Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Corresponding author: Marco Schmidt (mschmidt@senckenberg.de)

Academic editor: Anatoliy Khapugin

Received: 12 May 2020 | Accepted: 18 Jun 2020 | Published: 03 Jul 2020

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Citation: Nacoulma BMI, Schmidt M, Hahn K, Thiombiano A (2020) A checklist of vascular plants of the W National Park in Burkina Faso, including the adjacent hunting zones of Tapoa-Djerma and Kondio. Biodiversity Data Journal 8: e54205. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.8.e54205

Abstract

Background

The W National Park and its two hunting zones represent a unique ecosystem in Burkina Faso for biodiversity conservation. This study aims at providing a detailed view of the current state of the floristic diversity as a baseline for future projects aiming at protecting and managing its resources. We combined intensive inventories and distribution records from vegetation plots, photo records and herbarium collections.

New information

This is the first comprehensive checklist of vascular plants of the Burkina Faso part of the transborder W National Park. With 721 documented species including 19 species new to Burkina Faso, the Burkina Faso part of the W National Park is, so far, the nature reserve with most plant species in Burkina Faso. To a large extent, this may be assigned to its high habitat diversity and moderate degree of disturbance, but also to a relatively large area within an even larger complex of neighbouring protected areas, as well as comprehensive spatial, ecological and seasonal sampling efforts. However, as a World Heritage Site and regarding the current general context of insecurity, the W National Park and the entire WAP Complex require more international attention in order to ensure its conservation.

Keywords

plant diversity; new species; flora of Burkina Faso; protected areas; WAP Complex; West Africa

Introduction

In times of growing land use pressure in West Africa, protected areas play an increasingly important role in the conservation of wildlife as well as plant species (Clerici et al. 2007, Zoungrana et al. 2018). The W-Arly-Pendjari Complex (WAP Complex) is the largest transborder complex of West African nature reserves shared amongst the three countries Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger and a World Heritage Site of the UNESCO (UNESCO World Heritage Committee 2017). The three partner countries seek to further optimise and formalise joint management systems for the regional park, which are already partially in place (Miller et al. 2015). Remote sensing studies (Schulte to Bühne et al. 2017) showed vegetation cover within the protected areas to remain relatively stable, while decreasing in the surroundings between 2000 and 2013. Due to agricultural expansion and intensification, especially in the context of cotton farming, the WAP Complex is becoming increasingly isolated (Clerici et al. 2007, Konrad 2015), leaving little space for near-natural habitats in the surrounding communal area, being composed of croplands, fallows of different ages and only few savannas in sites unsuitable for agriculture.

The complex is well-known for its role in the conservation of large mammals and typical Sudanian savanna ecosystems (e.g. Thiombiano et al. 2010, Thiombiano and Kampmann 2010, see next paragraph for more details). It is a continuous area of nine protected areas which include the trinational complex of W Regional Park (named after the course of the river Niger forming a “W” in this area), Arly National Park in Burkina Faso and Pendjari National Park in Benin connected and enlarged by protected areas of other categories and hunting reserves (Konrad 2015).

The wildlife, especially the large mammals (Lamarque 2004) and birds (Balança et al. 2007) of the WAP Complex, is well documented. Likewise, the flora of W National Park of Niger (Mahamane 2005), Arly (Ouédraogo et al. 2011), Pama (Mbayngone et al. 2008) and Pendjari (Assédé et al. 2012) have recently been documented by published checklists. The flora of the W National Park in Burkina Faso, however, remained scarcely and poorly documented.

The present checklist has been produced to fill this gap by providing a comprehensive and detailed view of the floristic diversity of the W National Park including the surrounding hunting reserves in Burkina Faso as a baseline for future projects aiming at protecting and managing the resources of the WAP Complex. We assume that the core area has a high plant diversity due to the geographical and climatic setting, as well as the diversity of its habitats.

Materials and methods

Study area

The W National Park (235,000 ha) and its two hunting reserves, Kondio (also called Kourtiagou 51,000 ha) and Tapoa Djerma (30,000 ha) are located in eastern Burkina Faso, between 12.4° and 11.4° N and 1.8° and 2.4° E (Fig. 1). The W National Park in Burkina Faso, together with its equivalents in Benin and Niger, constitute a transfrontier park that is designated “wetland of international importance” under the Ramsar Convention in 2007. Altogether, they are part of the larger W-Arly-Pendjari transfrontier complex shared amongst the three countries Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger and one of the most important West African transboundary Biosphere Reserves of UNESCO-MAB.

Figure 1.

Map of W National Park in Burkina Faso and adjacent hunting zones with georeferenced occurrence records, considering different geomorphological units.

Figure 2.

Species newly documented for the flora of Burkina Faso.

a: Ampelocissus bombycina (Photo by Meike Piepenbring)
b: Aponogeton vallisnerioides
c: Gladiolus unguiculatus
d: Indigofera garckeana
e: Jatropha atacorensis
f: Selaginella buchholzii

The national park belongs to IUCN Category II, whereas the hunting reserves belong to Category IV. Both categories act to protect large terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, as well as threatened and rare species (both fauna and flora), serving as refuges and enhancing resilience. The National Park and the hunting zones are managed by prescribed fires ignited in October or November every year to mitigate the effect of accidental late fire and also to stimulate an off-season re-growth of perennial herbs for wildlife and to open the vegetation and increase the visibility of animals for tourists.

The W National Park and the two adjacent hunting zones of Burkina Faso are located in the Sahelo-Sudanian climate zone with an average rainfall of 750 to 950 mm, annual mean temperatures between 26 and 29°C and a dry season of 6-7 months. It belongs to the Pendjari-Mekrou biogeographical sector, shared between the Volta basin in its southern part and the Niger basin in the north. In the central western part of W National Park, eastern outliers of the Gobnangou range reach into the park and eastern outliers of the Atakora mountains are located on the southern edge of Kondio reserve and W National Park. The largest rivers in the reserves are the Mekrou on the eastern border and the Tapoa in the north, both tributaries of the Niger. In addition to the artificial water points, there are also numerous natural pools, with permanent and/or temporary water regimes (PNUD 2004). The vegetation is composed of a mosaic of various types of savannas i.e. woodland, grass, shrub and tree savanna, dry and gallery forests (Fontès and Guinko 1995), mostly distributed along elevation and soil gradients (Nacoulma et al. 2011) .

Data collection and management

The checklist is a result of extensive field surveys by the first author during the years 2007-2010, (622 records from a species list based on 369 vegetation plots; Nacoulma 2012), as well as photo records (545 records; Dressler et al. 2014, Schmidt et al. 2016) and herbarium collections from the W National Park, including the herbaria of OUA, FR (733 and 583 records via their respective collection databases) and WAG (five records via GBIF). The vegetation plots followed standard sizes of 10 m x 10 m for the herb layer and 10 m x 50 m or 30 m x 30 m for the woody layer shown to be suitable for the characterisation of Sudanian savanna vegetation by Hahn-Hadjali (1998) and Ouédraogo (2006). They were taken mostly during the end of the rainy season (September-October) in order to maximise the number of flowering individuals for identification. The smaller plots for herbs were randomly located inside the corresponding plots for woody plants. The locations were chosen by a stratified random design using satellite images and soil maps to best represent the geomorphological units (colluvial plains: 5, floodplain: 17, lower slope glacis: 45, mid-slope glacis: 101, upper slope glacis: 54, hardpan hillocks: 18, hardpan glacis: 73, shallows: 31, sandstone hills: 25) and vegetation types (woodland: 39, gallery forest: 17, savanna woodland: 58, tree savanna: 92, shrub savanna: 134, grass savanna: 29) following the definitions of the Yangambi conference (Conseil Scientifique pour l'Afrique au Sud du Sahara 1956), while taking accessibility into account (see Fig. 1 for the plot locations and geomorphological units). Herbarium and photo records were partly taken during the afore-mentioned work on vegetation plots, partly during collecting expeditions for the assessment of Burkina Faso's flora, focussing on previously under-sampled habitats (van der Burgt et al. 2010) and in the course of other research in the area with different focus (Erpenbach et al. 2012, Schumann et al. 2016, Zwarg et al. 2012). For data analysis, all these records have been combined into an MS Access database. Species concepts and synonymy, as well as families, follow Thiombiano et al. (2012) and, for orthographic corrections of primary data, we used the Taxonomic Name Resolution Service (TNRS; http://tnrs.iplantcollaborative.org). In order to identify species new to the flora of Burkina Faso, we compared the total floristic list of the study area to the catalogue of Burkina Faso‘s vascular plants (Thiombiano et al. 2012), supplemented by new species records from Schmidt (2018). Introduced species have been identified using a list extracted from Thiombiano et al. (2012), based upon distribution notes and contributed to the Global Register of Introduced and Invasive Species (Schmidt et al. 2020).

Species identification

Species have been identified using the Flora of West Tropical Africa (Hutchinson and Dalziel 1972), Flore Analytique du Bénin (Akoegninou et al. 2006), as well as group-specific literature for grasses (Poilecot 1995, Poilecot 1999), orchids (Perez-Vera 2003) and woody plants (Arbonnier 2000) in combination with online guides such as African Plants - a photo guide (Dressler et al. 2014) and the herbarium collections of Ouagadougou University (OUA) and Herbarium Senckenbergianum (FR).

Notes on the checklist

The list is arranged alphabetically by family and species. Synonyms are only given if these have been used in our primary data in herbarium, vegetation plot or photo records. Herbarium records are given with collector and collector’s number, followed in parentheses by herbarium code and herbarium number. Photo records are marked with APPG (African Plants - a photo guide: Dressler et al. 2014) and the photo ID within the guide’s website and database. New country records are specifically mentioned as "New species record for Burkina Faso". Introduced species are marked by "(introduced)" following the distribution type.

Vascular plants of W National Park, Burkina Faso and adjacent hunting zones

Annona senegalensis Pers.

Distribution:

Sudanian

Notes:

Life Form: phanerophyte; Voucher: Zwarg 73 (FR)

Hexalobus monopetalus (A.Rich.) Engl. & Diels

Distribution:

Sudanian

Notes:

Life Form: phanerophyte; Voucher: Nacoulma 147 (OUA-13511)

Uvaria chamae P.Beauv.

Distribution:

Pluriregional African

Notes:

Life Form: phanerophyte; Voucher: Nacoulma 4949 (OUA-17281)

Xylopia aethiopica (Dunal) A.Rich.

Distribution:

Guineo-Congolian-Sudano-Zambesian

Notes:

Life Form: geophyte

Stylochaeton hypogaeus Lepr.

Distribution:

Sudanian

Notes:

Life Form: geophyte; Voucher: Nacoulma (APPG-70382)

Stylochaeton lancifolius Kotschy & Peyr.

Distribution:

Aristolochia albida Duch.

Distribution:

Kigelia africana (Lam.) Benth.

Distribution:

Sudano-Zambesian

Notes:

Life Form: phanerophyte; Voucher: Nacoulma 107 (OUA-13471)

Stereospermum kunthianum Cham.

Distribution:

Euploca strigosa (Willd.) Diane & Hilger

Distribution:

Paleotropical

Notes:

Life Form: chamaephyte; Voucher: Nacoulma 4476 (OUA-17054)

Heliotropium indicum L.

Distribution:

Pantropical

Notes:

Life Form: therophyte; Voucher: Nacoulma (APPG-70063)

Rotula aquatica Lour.

Distribution:

Wahlenbergia hirsuta (Edgew.) Tuyn

Distribution:

Afro-American

Notes:

Life Form: therophyte; Voucher: Schumann (FR-0083327)

Family Cannabaceae

Trema orientalis (L.) Blume

Distribution:

Polycarpaea corymbosa (L.) Lam.

Distribution:

Pluriregional African

Notes:

Life Form: therophyte; Voucher: Nacoulma 94 (OUA-13458)

Polycarpaea eriantha Hochst. ex A.Rich.

Distribution:

Sudano-Zambesian

Notes:

Life Form: therophyte; Voucher: Schumann (FR-0083322)

Polycarpaea linearifolia (DC.) DC.

Distribution:

Afrotropical

Notes:

Life Form: therophyte; Voucher: Schumann (FR-0083321)

Polycarpon prostratum (Forssk.) Asch. & Schweinf.

Distribution:

Parinari congensis Didr.

Distribution:

Guineo-Congolian

Notes:

Life Form: phanerophyte; Voucher: Schmidt et al. (FR-0007622)

Costus spectabilis (Fenzl) K.Schum.

Distribution:

Distribution:

Distribution:

Sudano-Zambesian

Notes:

Life Form: therophyte

Eriocaulon plumale N.E.Br.

Distribution:

Distribution:

Afrotropical

Notes:

Life Form: therophyte; Voucher: Zwarg 41 (FR)

Family Gentianaceae

Canscora diffusa (Vahl) R.Br. ex Roem. & Schult.

Distribution:

Sudano-Zambesian

Notes:

Life Form: therophyte; Voucher: Nacoulma 105 (OUA-13469)

Distribution:

Sudano-Zambesian

Notes:

Life Form: geophyte; Voucher: Nacoulma 69 (OUA-13433)

Gladiolus unguiculatus Baker

Distribution:

Pluriregional African

Notes:

Life Form: geophyte; Voucher: Nacoulma (APPG-70039); New species record for Burkina Faso.

Family Isoetaceae

Isoetes nigritiana A. Braun

Distribution:

Utricularia inflexa Forssk.

Distribution:

Paleotropical

Notes:

Life Form: therophyte; Voucher: Nacoulma 4488 (OUA-17066)

Utricularia stellaris L.f.

Distribution:

Paleotropical

Notes:

Life Form: hydrophyte; Voucher: Zizka (APPG-3900)

Family Linderniaceae

Lindernia exilis Philcox

Distribution:

Agelanthus dodoneifolius (DC.) Polhill & Wiens

Distribution:

Sudanian

Notes:

Life Form: epiphyte

Tapinanthus bangwensis (Engl. & K.Krause) Danser

Distribution:

Guineo-Congolian

Notes:

Life Form: epiphyte; Voucher: Nacoulma (APPG-6855)

Tapinanthus globiferus (A.Rich.) Tiegh.

Distribution:

Distribution:

Afro-American

Notes:

Life Form: phanerophyte; Voucher: Zwarg 22 (FR)

Family Marantaceae

Thalia geniculata L.

Distribution:

Martynia annua L.

Distribution:

Glinus lotoides L.

Distribution:

Pantropical

Notes:

Life Form: hemicryptophyte; Voucher: Nacoulma 176 (OUA-13540)

Mollugo nudicaulis Lam.

Distribution:

Syzygium guineense (Willd.) DC.

Distribution:

Afrotropical

Notes:

Life Form: phanerophyte; Vouchernomenc: Nacoulma 152 (OUA-13516)

Family Nyctaginaceae

Boerhavia erecta L.

Distribution:

Ochna schweinfurthiana F.Hoffm.

Distribution:

Sudano-Zambesian

Notes:

Life Form: phanerophyte; Voucher: Nacoulma 15 (OUA-13386)

Family Oleaceae

Jasminum obtusifolium Baker

Distribution:

Ophioglossum costatum R. Br.

Distribution:

Sudano-Zambesian

Notes:

Life Form: geophyte; Voucher: Nacoulma 246 (OUA-17234)

Ophioglossum reticulatum L.

Distribution:

Pantropical

Notes:

Life Form: geophyte; Voucher: Zizka (APPG-3435)

Ophioglossum thomasii R.T. Clausen

Distribution:

Sudano-Zambesian

Notes:

Life Form: geophyte; Voucher: Nacoulma 230 (OUA-17238); New species record for Burkina Faso.

Family Opiliaceae

Opilia amentacea Roxb.

Distribution:

Distribution:

Sudano-Zambesian

Notes:

Life Form: therophyte; Voucher: Schumann (FR-0083124)

Family Oxalidaceae

Biophytum umbraculum Welw.

Distribution:

Ceratotheca sesamoides Endl.

Distribution:

Peperomia pellucida (L.) Kunth

Distribution:

Plumbago zeylanica L.

Distribution:

Polygala arenaria Willd.

Distribution:

Pluriregional African

Notes:

Life Form: therophyte; Voucher: Zwarg 9 (FR)

Polygala multiflora Poir.

Distribution:

Sudanian

Notes:

Life Form: therophyte; Voucher: Nacoulma 87 (OUA-13451)

Securidaca longipedunculata Fresen.

Distribution:

Afrotropical

Notes:

Life Form: phanerophyte; Voucher: Zwarg 124 (FR)

Family Polygonaceae

Persicaria decipiens (R.Br.) K.L.Wilson

Distribution:

Paleotropical

Notes:

Life Form: therophyte; Voucher: Schumann (FR-0083139)

Persicaria senegalensis (Meisn.) Soják

Distribution:

Pluriregional African

Notes:

Life Form: chamaephyte; Voucher: Nacoulma 4560 (OUA-17153)