Impact of Lantana camara on plant diversity and composition in Dara, Mirab Abaya, and Dila Zuria, Ethiopia
Amare Seifu, Ermias Lulekal & Melese Bekele
Abstract
Lantana camara (L.camara) has been ranked as the top impacting invasive alien plant species. However, its impacts have not been well studied in Ethiopia. Therefore, the objective of this study was to investigate the impact of L.camara on species diversity and composition of invaded plant communities in three districts of Ethiopia. A total of 120 (60 plots for each invaded and non-invaded), 10mX10m plots were sampled to examine its effects of invasions on the diversity and composition of invaded plant communities. A total of 109 plant species were found in the non-invaded areas as compared to 56 in invaded areas. The plant species richness decreased by 48.6% in L.camara invaded areas as compared to non-invaded. The mean evenness values of the entire invaded sampled study site and that of non-invaded were 0.24 and 0.81 respectively. Thus, the heterogeneity of invaded study sites was reduced by 57%. The number of plant families was 44 in the non-invaded areas in contrast to only 30 in invaded areas. The number of plant families decreased by 31.8% in the invaded areas as compared to non-invaded. One-way ANOVA, regression, and ordination analyses also showed a strong negative relationship between the percentage of L.camara and diversity of plant species. Therefore, it was noted that L.camara has a serious impact on plant species diversity and composition. Hence, the finding calls for an urgent management and control strategy against the spread of L.camara so as to save the ongoing threat to biodiversity.
Keywords
composition, evenness, infestation-levels, invaded plant communities, richness
Author information & Contribution
Amare Seifu. Corresponding author. PhD in Plant Ecology. Plant genetic resources researcher, Ethiopian Biodiversity Institute (EBI), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Email: ameseifu21@gmail.com
Ermias Lulekal. PhD in Ethno botany. Instructor and researcher, Addis Ababa University, College of Natural and Computational Sciences, Department of Plant Biology and Biodiversity Management, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Email: ermias.lulekalm@aau.edu.et
Melese Bekele. PhD in Forest Ecology. Forest and rangeland biodiversity researcher, Ethiopian Biodiversity Institute (EBI), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Email: melesebekeles@gmail.com
"All authors contributed equally to the conception, design, preparation, data gathering and analysis, and manuscript writing. All authors read and approved the final manuscript."
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
This work was not supported by any funding.
Institutional Review Board Statement
Not Applicable
Data and Materials Availability
The data supporting the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
AI Declaration
AI tools were not used in writing this paper.
Notes
Acknowledgement
The authors are grateful to Ethiopian Biodiversity Institute (EBI) for financial support during the field work. We also acknowledge Woze, Mechisho, and Waleme Kebeles agricultural extension experts, and the key informants for sharing their precious knowledge and experiences during data collection.
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Cite this article:
Seifu, A., Lulekal, E. & Bekele, M. (2026). Impact of Lantana camara on plant diversity and composition in Dara, Mirab Abaya, and Dila Zuria, Ethiopia. International Journal of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, 6(1), 22-46. https://doi.org/10.53378/ijstem.353324
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