Status of Hagenia forest in the Parc National des Volcans, Rwanda: A review of historical records

Hagenia-shaped habitat is an important element in conservation of world’s only population of mountain gorillas surviving in the wild. In fact, in the Parc National des Volcans (henceforth PNV), gorillas spend most of their life time in the nutritious herbaceous habitats near or within the Hagenia-Hypericum zone. Unfortunately, populations of Hagenia abyssinica in this park have been reported to be ageing. Using information drawn from the statistical analysis of records in herbaria and the cross−examination of the literature, the status of Hagenia forest in PNV is discussed. The results show that H. abyssinica in PNV has an unusual pattern of population structure and distribution, seemingly since many decades. No record of H. abyssinica was collected from PNV, but patterns of collections of H. abyssinica are globally similar to those of a set of five control tree species, such that this absence of records from this park cannot be considered as due to collector or collection site-bound bias. The paper ends by giving insight on possible implications for conservation of the park’s wildlife, chiefly the gorillas. Key words: Tree regeneration, herbarium records, afromontane forest.