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KORUP NATIONAL PARK
Korup National Park is one
of the oldest and most biologically diverse
areas of lowland rainforest in Africa, rich in
animals, plants, and fungi. Designated as a
National Park in 1986, Korup lies on the
western border of Cameroon’s Southwest
Province, some 50 km inland from the Bight of
Biafra, and comprises an area of some 1260
square kilometres .
Average rainfall within the park is over 5000
mm p.a., average temperature 27C,
average humidity 86%.
In addition to lowland
rainforest, the mid-Korup region includes
areas of swamp forest, a small area of
secondary forest around the village of Ekundu
Kundu, and sub-montane forest associated with
Mount Juahan, which is the highest point in
the Park. Sub-montane forest is of
particularly high conservation value in the
Wet Tropics of Africa as it is of limited
extent and typically contains a significant
number of sub-montane endemic plants.
In 1996, at the invitation
of the Korup National Park Project management,
RBG Kew in conjunction with Earthwatch Europe
and the National Herbarium of Cameroon
undertook botanical and mycological inventory
work in the mid-Korup
region.
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Phyllobotryum
soyaxianum (Flacourtiaceae). Monopodial
shrubs remarkable for bearing flowers
and fruits along the midribs of the
leaves. |
Previous plant and fungus
collections had been made in the area, chiefly
by Duncan Thomas, who produced a Korup
Project Plant List (Thomas, 1993), and Roy
Watling of RBG Edinburgh, who published a list
of non-agaricoid macrofungi (Hjortstam et
al., 1993).
In the introduction to the
plant list, however, Thomas readily
acknowledged it was "by no means
complete" and that the field coverage was
"very patchy" The same was even more
true of the fungi.
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Kew projects
At the request of the
Project management, Kew's inventory work was
divided into three elements which were:
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General collecting of fertile plant
specimens in the mid-Korup region
(supported by Earthwatch funding)
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Total vascular plant species inventories
of twelve 25 x 25 m plots (largely
supported by Korup Project Management
funding)
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General collecting of macrofungi
Of the twelve 25 x 25 m
plots, ten were situated along transects in
lowland rainforest at altitudes between 170–550
m, an eleventh plot was situated in freshwater
swamp forest (alt 150 m) and the twelfth plot
was on Mount Juahan (alt ca. 1100 m).
Understorey
of lowland evergreen forest, Korup
National Park. 25m x 25m plots in Korup
produced the highest in our Cameroon
series, over 300 vascular plant species
per plot. |
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New
discoveries
The
preliminary results of the
mid-Korup vascular plant
inventory work were reported
at a workshop on the Korup
National Park and Project Area
(Cheek & Cable, 1998). In
total, approximately 832
fertile plant collections were
made with a further 3150
(mostly) sterile plot
collections. A new genus, Korupodendron,
and several new plant species were
discovered amongst the plant
collections and a manual of
the legumes of mid-Korup was
subsequently published by Kew
(Mackinder, 1998). Three
initial papers on the fungi
(Roberts 1999; 2000; 2001)
have described one genus and
sixteen species new to
science.
David Oken, staff
biologist at Korup National
Park. |
References
Cheek, M. & Cable, S. (1998).
Preliminary results of the botanical inventory
of the Ekundu Kundu region of the Korup Park.
In Songwe, N. C. (Ed.), Proceedings of
Workshop on Korup National Park &
Project Area. pp. 72 - 80. Mundemba,
Cameroon: Korup Project.
Mackinder, B. (1998). Manual of the legumes
of mid-Korup. 35 pp. Kew: Royal Botanic
Gardens.
Hjortstam, K., Ryvarden, L., & Watling,
R. (1993). Preliminary checklist of non-agaricoid
macromycetes in the Korup National Park,
Cameroon and surrounding area. Edinb. J.
Bot. 50: 105 - 119.
Roberts, P. (1999). Clavarioid fungi from
Korup National Park, Cameroon. Kew Bulletin
54: 517 - 539
Roberts, P. (2000). Corticioid fungi from
Korup National Park, Cameroon. Kew Bulletin
55: 803 - 842
Roberts, P. (2001). Heterobasidiomycetes
from Korup National Park, Cameroon. Kew
Bulletin 56: 163 – 187.
Thomas, D. (1993). Korup
Project plant list (all species). 47 pp.
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