Impacts of the Exploitation of Rock Models on Phytodiversity in the Agbelouve Township and Its Surroundings

Abstract

The exploitation of rocky outcrops is increasing and leading to the loss of biodiversity in the canton of Agbélouvé and its surroundings. This study aims to assess the impact of the exploitation of these rocks on the flora and vegetation, in order to contribute to the sustainable management of plant resources. It is based on floristic inventories of the exploitation sites and off-site. The collected data was processed by the Excel 2016 spreadsheet, and software XLSTAT 2008. The results of this research show that this activity is at the origin of the destruction of the vegetation cover and the modification of the topographic landscape.  234 species were recorded in 96 surveys, including 95 species belonging to 41 families on the exploitation sites, compared to 139 species belonging to 51 families off-site.  The Shannon diversity indexes are 1.86 and 2 respectively on and off sites. Pielou's equitability index is 0.94 on the exploitation sites and 0.93 off-site.  The analysis of the biological spectrum shows the predominance of phanerophytes (60.76%) off sites against (37%) therophytes on the exploitation sites.  The analysis of the phytogeographical spectrum indicates the predominance of Afro-tropical species on the two sites explored. Faced with the negative impacts of the exploitation of the rock formations on the vegetation, it is necessary to take measures for the restoration of the exploitation sites.