Impact of land use on the ecology of uncultivated plant species in the Rwenzori mountain range, mid western Uganda

Abstract

Rwenzori mountain range is important for its high diversity of unique species and as a water catchment area and yet very fragile to human interference. The study documented the impact of land use on ecology of uncultivated plant species in the Rwenzori mountain range using Bugoye sub-county as a reference site. The ecological aspects of the plants studied included distribution, abundance and diversity of the plant species in and around the various land uses as well as in degraded, disturbed and undisturbed areas. Land uses identified were; agriculture, built up area and land with other activities (conservation and abandoned fields). The study revealed that agriculture was the main land use category taking up 69.7% of land use area. Plants distributed in and around the land uses were mainly trees with species diversity of 34.5%. Generally, there was no relationship in the distribution of plant species in degraded, undisturbed and disturbed areas (a = 0.01). In disturbed areas, there was vegetation cover especially of plant species that occur as secondary re-growth, and in degraded areas, the ground was sparsely covered by primary succession species while in the undisturbed areas, plant species growing in a 'natural. habitat dominated and most of them were climax species. © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.