Expedition no. 18: Visit by Bart Wursten and Stefaan Dondeyne to Mozambique: 31 Aug 2012-8 Sep 2012

Stefaan Dondeyne had planned a fieldtrip to Moribane forest at the beginning of September 2012. The goal was to set up a fieldwork methodology on soil and vegetation research for the local partners at the Instituto Superior Politécnico de Manica (ISPM).

Stefaan asked me (Bart Wursten) to tag along to work on the vegetation aspects, particularly the identification of species in the field. Stefaan could concentrate on the soils. We were accompanied by Arnaldo Uetela, one of the lecturers at ISPM.

The trip was all rather short and Mozambique was very dry and dusty as could be expected at this time of the year. From Beira to Chimoio and along the road to Moribane fires had scorched the earth and its vegetation. Even the evergreen forests of the otherwise lush environment in the Moribane area looked rather dry and open at times.

We managed to successfully sample soils and vegetation at three different habitat types in Moribane:

• Mature evergreen forest dominated by Newtonia buchananii;
• Old secondary semi-deciduous forest dominated by Millettia stuhlmannii;
• Swamp forest dominated by Pandanus livingstonianus and Apocynaceae such as Voacanga and Funtumia.

The results will eventually appear in publications and the intention is for ISPM students, led by Arnaldo Uetela, to undertake similar surveys in other areas of the Chimanimani Conservation Area.

My personal thanks goes out to Stefaan, who once again was willing to provide me with the opportunity to accompany him, which apart from the interesting work experience, yielded plenty of new and interesting content for our online Flora of Mozambique.

Bart Wursten