Assessment of productivity, grazing capacity and rangeland value of grazed herbages of Falmey Rangelands South Western part of Niger Republic

This study was presented for a better understanding of the current condition of the herbages following flora and vegetation sampling in four rangelands along the axis of transhumance in Falmey department (Dosso Region), southwest part of Niger Republic. It was aimed to determine the phytodiversity of each herbage plant community; classify and describe herbage communities along an ecological gradient; and assess the productivity and the grazing capacity of the herbage plant communities. A total of 85 plots, measuring 50 × 20 m, were established for the phytosociological inventory and the distance between transects was 500 m and the distance between plots was 300 m. The line-point intercept method was used to inventory floristics vegetation and herbaceous phytomass was collected from each plot of 1000 m2 at the five different places. On each plot, five square plots of 1 m2 were placed (one square plot at the four corners and one in the middle of the plot of 1000 m2). A total of 72 vegetal herbaceous species were recorded in the four rangelands, belonging to 53 genera and 20 families. Among the families, Poaceae was the most abundant, followed by Fabaceae. The life forms spectrum of the four grazing lands was dominated by Therophytes with 75%. The phytogeophical was dominated by the paleotropical and pantropical species, covering 25% and 21% of the chorological spectrum, respectively. Following Agglomerative hierarchical cluster and detrended correspondence analysis (DCA), five herbage communities were discriminated against. The biodiversity estimates with Richness, Shannon index and Pielou Equitability respectively, ranged from 49 to 60; 3.31 to 3.75 bits and 0.56 to 0.64. The herbage communities had produced phytomass with a mean of 1230 ± 300 kg.DM/ha. In total, rangeland value ranged from 24.80% to 44.11%, indicating the lower quality of the pasture of Falmey four rangelands.