ABC_Mafinga Forest Reserve Vegetation survey
Latest version published by National Herbarium & Botanic Gardens of Malawi on May 31, 2022
Mafinga Forest reserve according to a classification by White et al. 2001 is an Afromontane, mid-altitude forest and lies between 09 59’ 00”S and 33 20’ 40” E and covers an area of about 250ha. The reserve lies at the border between Malawi and Zambia and is shared between the two countries. It lies on an altitude of 1600-1800m above the sea level
The vegetation is open canopy woodland of hills and scarps dominated by Brachystegia species, especially B. boehmii, and a degraded form of Uapaca kirkiana. Environmental Pressures and Development Inevitably, development entails environmental hazards, and environmental problems often appear as a result of inappropriate rural management through lack of appreciation of these hazards. A combination of poor soils, land unsuited for agriculture, high population growth.
Data Records
The data in this sampling event resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 12 records. 1 extension data tables also exist. An extension record supplies extra information about a core record. The number of records in each extension data table is illustrated below.
- Event (core)
- Occurrence
This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.
Downloads
Download the latest version of this resource data as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A) or the resource metadata as EML or RTF:
| Data as a DwC-A file | download 12 records in English (7 KB) - Update frequency: as needed |
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| Metadata as an EML file | download in English (13 KB) |
| Metadata as an RTF file | download in English (10 KB) |
Versions
The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.
How to cite
Researchers should cite this work as follows:
Mwafongo E (2018): ABC_Mafinga Forest Reserve Vegetation survey. v1.3. National Herbarium & Botanic Gardens of Malawi. Dataset/Samplingevent. http://196.32.215.240:8081/ipt/resource?r=abc_mafinga_forest_reserve_saamplingevent&v=1.3
Rights
Researchers should respect the following rights statement:
The publisher and rights holder of this work is National Herbarium & Botanic Gardens of Malawi. To the extent possible under law, the publisher has waived all rights to these data and has dedicated them to the Public Domain (CC0 1.0). Users may copy, modify, distribute and use the work, including for commercial purposes, without restriction.
GBIF Registration
This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: d303d758-eb02-4d96-9a74-bbed85bf4a73. National Herbarium & Botanic Gardens of Malawi publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by GBIF Malawi.
Keywords
Samplingevent; Mafinga Forest Reserve; Malawi; Vegetation Survey
Contacts
Who created the resource:
Who can answer questions about the resource:
Who filled in the metadata:
Who else was associated with the resource:
Geographic Coverage
The reserve lies at the border between Malawi and Zambia and is shared between the two countries. It lies on an altitude of 1600-1800m above the sea level.
| Bounding Coordinates | South West [-10.068, 33.262], North East [-9.85, 33.442] |
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Taxonomic Coverage
The dataset consists of plant species all identified to species level
| Order | Apiales, Celestrales, Ericales, Fabales, Gentianales, Malpighiales, Malvales, Myrtales, Proteales, Santanales, Sapindales |
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Temporal Coverage
| Start Date / End Date | 2013-12-08 / 2013-12-21 |
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Project Data
The African Biodiversity Challenge is a competition coordinated by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) and funded by the JRS Biodiversity Foundation. The competition follows on from a previous JRS-funded project, “Mobilising Policy and Decision-making Relevant Biodiversity Data”, which culminated in the Africa Rising conference in 2015, and supports on-going efforts to further enhance the Biodiversity Information Management activities of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) Africa network. This project also aligns with SANBI’s Regional Engagement Strategy, and endeavours to strengthen both emerging biodiversity informatics networks and data management capacity on the continent in support of sustainable development.
| Title | The African Biodiversity Challenge: unlocking data for sustainable development |
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| Identifier | African Biodiversity Challenge 2018 |
| Funding | JRS Biodiversity Foundation |
| Study Area Description | The project will cover biodiversity data for the entire nation of Malawi. |
| Design Description | The main objective of this project is to facilitate easy access to biodiversity data information held by the Museums in Malawi and the end product will be that biodiversity data will be made available on a national Data platform – the platform will be accessible through both the government Museum website and the Wildlife and Environmental Society of Malawi (WESM) website. Distribution Maps – spatial data will be provided for all records whenever available. These will help to produce some distribution data for common species. Invasive species occurrence assessment – from plant occurrence data an assessment will be sought on the occurrence of known invasive species in Malawi. Increased capacity for biodiversity information management – officers at the Museums of Malawi and the Wildlife and Environmental Society will receive training in data management |
The personnel involved in the project:
Sampling Methods
Six transects placed 1km apart and a total of twelve quadrats (20 x 50 m) were established. Experience in a range of countries has shown that observer fatigue increases markedly if plot sizes larger than 40 x 5m are used in complex vegetation – a factor likely to be compounded in rough terrain. Transect and quadrat positions were georeferenced using a GPS.Quadrats were spaced 100m apart. In each quadrat a general list of all plants was done. For tree species DBH and tree height were recorded on a data form
| Study Extent | Chitipa town was used as a base because there were no lodging places in Chisenga which necessitated daily travelling for a distance of over 80km to access the Forest reserve. The road from Chitipa town to through Chisenga up to the Malawi/Zambia boarder was used as a base for establishing transects and quadrats. |
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| Quality Control | Species which could not be identified had their samples taken for further identification at the National Herbarium in Zomba. |
Method step description:
- The road from Chitipa town to through Chisenga up to the Malawi/Zambia boarder was used as a base for establishing transects and quadrats.Six transects placed 1km apart and a total of twelve quadrats (20 x 50 m) were established.
Additional Metadata
| Purpose | The objective of the field trip was to carry out a vegetation survey using plot sampling as the area is facing Environmental Pressures and Development |
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| Maintenance Description | The present resource will be maintained as new info is generated |
| Alternative Identifiers | d303d758-eb02-4d96-9a74-bbed85bf4a73 |
| http://196.32.215.240:8081/ipt/resource?r=abc_mafinga_forest_reserve_saamplingevent |