Basic overview of riparian forest in Sudanian savanna ecosystem: Case study of Togo

This research was conducted mainly in the riparian and stream forest in northern Togo protected areas. It aims to assess and to describe trees’ biodiversity especially those of riparian forest including their tree plant community structure assessment. It also aims to find out the environmental factor which influences the species distribution. In that regard, 170 forest plots were set in the whole zone to identify the major vegetation types via the ordination analysis (detrended correspondence analysis). For this step, four types of wood vegetation were described. After that, the study was focused on the riparian ecosystem where 62 forest plots were set up along the rivers Koumongou, Gambara and Komkoumbou. This new batch of data was subjected to floristic analysis, structure (diameter and height) correlation analysis and spatial analysis of human activities. The results showed that 61 tree species belonged to 25 families in the riparian forest. The species were absolutely dominated by mesophanerophytes, microphanerophytes, Sudano-Zambezian and Sudanian species. In spite of its destruction and degradation which is observed in the places with high human pressure, the riparian forest still presents a stable growth based on the structure feature. Fabaceae, Combretaceae, Rubiaceae, Anacardiaceae, and Moraceae were listed as important families in the areas, but this potential floristic resource was almost threatened by activities such as farming, pasture, burning, and tree cutting. The ecological restoration of the bank is needed through the program of participative afforestation, and re-vegetation of the destroyed zone by native species in short term; and implemented with a global plan of conservation of this endangered ecosystem