Biodiversity in fragmented key resource areas :Presistence of plant diversity and productivity in an intensely grazed key resource area

Abstract

Thesis investigates the drivers of large ungulate biomass density in the KRA along Lake Naivasha; investigates the impact of large ungulates grazing and rainfall on productivity (regrowth) and residual aboveground biomass of herbaceous plants; compares a novel method (ManyGLM) against the distance- based redundancy analysis (db-RDA) in detecting the multivariate effect of ungulate grazing on plant community composition and identification of the species that are most responsive to grazing; analyzes the impacts of continuous intense grazing by large herbivore on herbaceous plant diversity and composition in the fragmented KRA; evaluates the relative contribution of environmental heterogeneity and species dispersal limitation (spatial distances) on variation in plant beta-diversity in a highly fragmented KRA.