Floristic composition of ibecetane cattle multiplication ranch rangeland

Abstract

The floristic composition and pastoral value of the Ibecetane cattle multiplication ranch center in the Niger Republic were investigated in 2022. The rangeland consisted of three soil-geomorphological units. 4 parallel transect lines of 6 km length crossing the landscape units in the East-west direction at 500 +m width from each other were set on the rangeland. Along each transect plot, samples of 50 × 50 m area were demarcated and, 30 quadrats of 1m² were randomly assigned per sampling unit and the herbaceous layer was harvested. Results indicated that 45 herbaceous species with a 3.22 diversity value comprising 23 grasses and 22 legumes belonging to 37 families were identified. Two groups can be distinguished, one group with a soil coverage higher than 10% and including Cenchrus biflorus (35.6%), Tribulus terrestris (11.9%) and Dactyloctenium aegyptium (11.2%), while the other group had less than 10% soil coverage percentage. Distribution analysis of the herbaceous species indicated that the dominant species was C. biflorus 36.9% followed by Dactyloctenium aegyptium (11.6%), Alysicarpus ovalifolius (9.9%) and Tribulus terrestris (12.3%). Cenchrus and Tribulus terrestris pastures were dominant on shallow limon-clays soils with 3.47 and 0.68 diversity and equitability indexes against and on sandy soil with 1.99 and 0.48, respectively. The C biflorus and D. aegyptium pasture present on mixt or mixt soil type had a frequency of 35.3 and 11.8% with a diversity and equitability value of 2.93 and 0.60, respectively. Overall, the pasture is of good quality and management is required to restore the lost perennials.