Beta
304854

Environmental Assessment of Wetland Vegetation: a Case Study of Ashtum El-Gamil Protectorate, Lake Manzala, Egypt

Article

Last updated: 01 Jan 2025

Subjects

-

Tags

-

Abstract

Wise use of the Egyptian wetlands through local and national actions as a contribution towards achieving sustainable development throughout the country has been implemented. Ashtum El-Gamil Protectorate is a part of Lake Manzala and an ideal wetland habitat. Unfortunately, Ashtum El-Gamil Protectorate was subjected to many encroachments that led to biodiversity loss and habitat destruction during the last decades. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the current state of vegetation distribution and its relationship with environmental variables in the investigated area. The vegetation and soil sampling was carried out using 50 stands. Phyto-sociologically, the vegetation assessment revealed that Ashtum El-Gamil Protectorate is home to 43 species belonging to 38 genera and 22 families. Chenopodiaceae has the highest contribution to the total flora (18.6%), followed by Asteraceae and Poaceae, with 5 species for each (11.6%) of the total number of recorded species. Therophytes (37%) and cryptophytes (34.87%) are the most abundant life forms. Phytogeographically, the Mediterranean (mono-, bi-, and pluriregional) chorotype is represented by the highest percentage of plant species (41.86%). Two-way indicator analysis (TWINSPAN) revealed that the vegetation is classified into four groups. Detrended correspondence analysis (DCA) confirmed the segregation of these vegetation groups, and canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) indicated that the most significant environmental variables affecting the distribution of these groups were pH, electrical conductivity, total dissolved salts, total organic carbon, total organic matter, nitrate, sodium, sulphate, magnesium, lead, zinc, phosphorus, sand and silt. In conclusion, the Egyptian Government has developed a project that began in 2017, affecting biodiversity and habitat structure.

DOI

10.21608/ejabf.2023.304854

Keywords

Ashtum El-Gamil, Floristic analysis, Habitat destruction, Multivariate Analysis, soil-vegetation relationships, Wetlands

Authors

First Name

Mona

Last Name

Mostafa et al.

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

-

Email

-

City

-

Orcid

-

Volume

27

Article Issue

3

Related Issue

41228

Issue Date

2023-05-01

Receive Date

2023-06-23

Publish Date

2023-05-01

Page Start

569

Page End

601

Print ISSN

1110-6131

Online ISSN

2536-9814

Link

https://ejabf.journals.ekb.eg/article_304854.html

Detail API

https://ejabf.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=304854

Order

32

Type

Original Article

Type Code

103

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

Egyptian Journal of Aquatic Biology and Fisheries

Publication Link

https://ejabf.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

Environmental Assessment of Wetland Vegetation: a Case Study of Ashtum El-Gamil Protectorate, Lake Manzala, Egypt

Details

Type

Article

Created At

23 Dec 2024