Field data on Vegetation Structure and Effects of Human Use of the Dambos Ecosystem in Northern Mozambique

Aires Afonso Mbanze; Amade Martins Mário; Rui Rivaes; Ana I Ribeiro-Barros; Natasha Sofia Ribeiro

doi:10.1016/j.dib.2019.104454

Field data on Vegetation Structure and Effects of Human Use of the Dambos Ecosystem in Northern Mozambique

Data Brief. 2019 Sep 12:26:104454. doi: 10.1016/j.dib.2019.104454. eCollection 2019 Oct.

Authors

Aires Afonso Mbanze^{1

2

3}, Amade Martins Mário⁴, Rui Rivaes⁵, Ana I Ribeiro-Barros², Natasha Sofia Ribeiro⁶

Affiliations

¹ Universidade Lúrio, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences (FCA), Sanga University Campus, Niassa Province, Mozambique.
² Universidade de Lisboa, Instituto Superior de Agronomia (ISA), Linking Landscape, Environment, Agriculture and Food (LEAF), Tapada da Ajuda, P.O.Box, 1349-017, Lisbon, Portugal.
³ Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Nova School of Business and Economics, Campus de Carcavelos, Rua da Holanda 1, P.O.Box 2775-405, Lisbon, Portugal.
⁴ Technical Institute of Ecotourism Armando Emílio Guebuza, Marrupa District, Niassa Province, Mozambique.
⁵ Universidade de Lisboa, Instituto Superior de Agronomia (ISA), Forest Research Centre (CEF), Tapada da Ajuda, P.O.Box, 1349-017, Lisbon, Portugal.
⁶ Eduardo Mondlane University, Faculty of Agronomy and Forest Engineering, Av. J. Nyerere 3453/Campus Universitário Principal, Maputo, Mozambique.

Abstract

The data content of this paper is related to the original research article entitled "Vegetation Structure and Effects of Human Use of the Dambo Ecosystem in Northern Mozambique" that was published in the Global Ecology and Conservation. Woody and grass vegetation was inventoried in the dambos wetlands of the Niassa National Reserve (NNR), the largest Protected Area (PA) in Mozambique and the third largest in Africa. The six dambos assessed were selected through Google Earth, MODIS satellite images and exploratory field visits. The selected dambos were surveyed using a two-stage systematic sampling procedure in which woody vegetation was inventoried by means of transects, and the grass was inventoried using quadratic sub-plots laid down within the transects. The woody vegetation survey included the identification of all individuals to the species level, measurement of total height and diameter at breast height (DBH). The grass vegetation survey consisted of measurement of the total height and species identification within sub-plots. Woody vegetation data in this article includes also estimation of total richness, absolute and relative abundance, dominance, frequency, species volume and successional stage of each species in the vertical structure. Estimation of richness and absolute dominance is also presented for the grass vegetation.

Keywords: Dambos ecosystem; Horizontal and vertical structure; Transect lines and vegetation survey.