**5. Implications for management of the African woodland savannas**

Understanding the diversity and composition of tree species is vital since they provide resources and habitats for a number of other species. Assessments in botanical studies, such as floristic composition, species diversity, and structural analysis studies, are significant for providing accurate information on the species richness, which is valuable for sustainable forest management and helps to understand forest ecology and functioning of the ecosystem. Understanding the long-term response of biological diversity as a result of land use and cover change is vital if species extinctions and decline in biotic diversity were to be minimized. This can be enhanced by implementation of sound and timely conservation and restoration efforts by international forest conservation organizations, governing authorities, interest groups, etc. The knowledge provided in this chapter is expected to be beneficial for planning purposes and management intended for the conservation of biotic diversity and the sustenance of local livelihoods.

## **6. Conclusion**

The evidence presented in this chapter shows how anthropogenic activities, such as forest conversion to woodland for fuel wood removal, charcoal production, woodland grazing, herbivory, habitat degradation, overexploitation, invasive alien species, pollution and climate change, exploitation through illegal and legal logging, and set forest fires, have impacted on the African savanna's species diversity and composition. The chapter also noted that the availability of resources, that is, rainfall and soil nutrients, is a significant factor in species diversity and composition. The chapter also highlights the influence of selective feeding and the physical effects of defoliation, competitive exclusion, and environmental heterogeneity as other significant factors affecting species diversity and composition in an African savanna. This has clearly degraded most parcels of African savanna and has disturbed the species' habitat, thereby significantly exacerbating its decline.

*Contextualizing the Factors Affecting Species Diversity and Composition in the African Savanna DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.108413*
