ABC Matandwe Forest Reserve Vegetation Survey

Elizabeth Mwafongo1, Donald Mpalika1

1 National Herbarium & Botanic Gardens of Malawi, P.O. Box 528, Zomba, Malawi

Corresponding author(s): Elizabeth Mwafongo (emwafongo@yahoo.com)

Received {date}; Revised {date}; Accepted {date}; Published {date}

Citation: Combination of authors, year of data paper publication (in parentheses), Title, Journal Name, Volume, Issue number (in parentheses), and doi of the data paper.

Resource Citation

Mwafongo E (2018): ABC Matandwe Forest Reserve Vegetation Survey. v1.2. National Herbarium & Botanic Gardens of Malawi. Dataset/Samplingevent. http://196.32.215.240:8081/ipt/resource?r=abc_matandwe_evendata&v=1.2

Abstract

Matandwe FR was gazetted in 1931 and is located in Nsanje district in the Rift Valley scarp zone, comprising a range of hills including Mulaka hills in the north and Natundu Hills in the south. In the NW the FR is bordered by Mwabvi Game Reserve. 
The FR extends from approximately  south of Bangula. The soils are lithosols  The vegetation is open canopy woodland of hills and scarps dominated by Brachystegia species, especially B. boehmii, and a degraded form of Uapaca kirkiana.
The area of the FR is estimated to be 262.05 km2; however, it has been encroached and excised several times. Accessibility in the FR is difficult due to rugged terrain; there is only one earth road branching off the Bangula-Nsanjebitumised road leading to Chididi Mission.

Keywords: Samplingevent, Matandwe, Nsanje, Malawi

General description

Purpose: National Herbarium is a botanical institution whose objective is to carry out plant inventories from all the areas in Malawi. Since most forest reserves are at risk because of over exploitation, the prime responsibility of the institution is to document the species that are found in these forest reserves and asses the degree of threat of the species. most datasets are in print format and it is through the project"Africa Biodiversity Challenge" that these datasets are being mobilized and converted to Darwin Core format and published at GBIF.
Additional information: Please note that the OccurenceID has a suffix "MTM" which represents the three individuals who collected the data in the field and they are; Mwanyambo, M., Thera,M. and Mpalika, D.

Data published through GBIF: http://196.32.215.240:8081/ipt/resource?r=abc_matandwe_evendata

Taxonomic coverage

General taxonomic coverage description: The dataset contains a total of 107 species  recorded in 39 families,
Taxonomic ranks
Class: Liliopsida, Magnoliopsida

Spatial coverage

General spatial coverage: Matandwe Forest Reserve extends from approximately 16o37’S just south of Bangula to 16o55’S along Malindi river, Nsanje District.
Coordinates: 17°4'30''S and 16°48'21.6''S Latitude; 35°7'8.4''E and 35°17'45.6''E Longitude 

Temporal coverage: February 5, 2012 - February 11, 2012

Methods

Method step description: Coordinate information was originally in Degrees minutes and seconds and were translated to decimal, degrees and seconds using a web based software  http://www.rcn.montana.edu/resources/converter.aspx
Study extent description: Matandwe FR was gazetted in 1931; it is located in Nsanje district in the Rift Valley scarp zone, comprising a range of hills including Mulaka hills in the north and Natundu Hills in the south. In the NW the FR is bordered by Mwabvi Game Reserve. The FR extends from approximately 16o37’S just south of Bangula to 16o55’S along Malind
Sampling description: Chididi road cutting through a section of the FR was used as a base for establishing transects and quadrats. Five transects and a total of twelve quadrats (20 x 50 m) were established. Transect and quadrat positions were georeferenced using a GPS. Quadrats were spaced 250m apart.
In each quadrat a general list of all plants was done. For tree species DBH and tree height were recorded on a data forms.

Datasets

Dataset description
Object name: Darwin Core Archive ABC Matandwe Forest Reserve Vegetation Survey
Character encoding: UTF-8
Format name: Darwin Core Archive format
Format version: 1.0
Distribution: http://196.32.215.240:8081/ipt/archive.do?r=abc_matandwe_evendata
Publication date of data: 2022-05-31
Language: English
Licences of use: Public Domain (CC0 1.0)

Metadata language: English
Date of metadata creation: 2018-10-10
Hierarchy level: Dataset