Exploring the West African forest island phenomenon: scientific insights gained, successes achieved and capacities strengthened.

Autor:	Logah V; Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana., Azeez JO; Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta, Abeokuta, Nigeria., Compaore H; Institut de l'Environnement et de Recherches Agricoles, Tougan, Burkina Faso., Mesele SA; International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Headquarters Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria., Ocansey CM; Institute of Environmental Sciences, Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Gödöllő, Hungary.; CSIR-Crops Research Institute, Fumesua, Ghana., Bougma AB; Institut de l'Environnement et de Recherches Agricoles, Tougan, Burkina Faso., Tetteh EN; CSIR-Crops Research Institute, Fumesua, Ghana., Veenendaal E; Plant Ecology and Nature Conservation Group, Wageningen University, 6700 AA Wageningen, The Netherlands., Lloyd J; Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College of Science and Technology, London, UK.
Jazyk:	angličtina
Zdroj:	Interface focus [Interface Focus] 2024 Aug 09; Vol. 14 (4), pp. 20230078. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Aug 09 (Print Publication: 2024).
DOI:	10.1098/rsfs.2023.0078
Abstrakt:	Anthropogenic activities around local villages in mesic savanna landscapes of West Africa have resulted in soil improvement and forest establishment outside their climatic zones. Such unique 'forest islands' have been reported to provide ecosystem services including biodiversity conservation. However, the science underpinning their formations is limitedly studied. In 2015 and with funding support from the Royal Society-DFID (now FCDO), we set out to investigate the biogeochemistry of the forest islands in comparison with adjacent natural savanna and farmlands across 11 locations in Burkina Faso, Ghana and Nigeria. Our results showed that the forest islands do not differ significantly from the adjoining ecosystems in soil mineralogy implying that their formation was anthropogenically driven. We observed greater soil organic carbon and nutrient distributions in the forest islands, which also had more stable macro (>500 μm) and meso-aggregates (500-250 μm) than the adjoining agricultural lands. We found that soil micro-aggregate (250-53 μm) stability was climate (precipitation) driven in the West African ecosystems while meso- and macro-aggregate stability was land-use driven. In one of the unique forest islands we studied in the Mole National Park of Ghana, we found its mineral-associated organic carbon over 40% greater than the adjoining natural savanna with potential implications for the achievement of the global initiative of the '4p1000' in West Africa. We conclude that the North-South-South research collaboration has established clearly, the science underlying the age-long West African forest island phenomenon and has, among many successes, led to capacity building of young scientists driving cutting-edge research in climate change adaptation and food systems transformation in the sub-region. Competing Interests: We declare we have no competing interests. (© 2024 The Author(s).)
Databáze:	MEDLINE
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