The six were among thousands of specimens collected by researchers studying forest ecology there and in the nearby Magombera Nature Reserve.
As originally featured on Mongabay.com
Magombera was damaged by commercial logging in the 1970s-80s, and affected areas have been overrun by woody vines known as lianas. But teams working on the ground think that millipede diversity and abundance in liana thickets is equal to that of undisturbed forests, suggesting they may be dynamic places poised for forest regeneration with minimal human intervention.
Scientists have recently described six new species of millipedes, including one from an entirely new genus, in Tanzania’s Eastern Arc Mountains. This brings the number of new species found in the Udzungwa Mountiains since 2014 to 81 — further confirming the rich biodiversity of these isolated mountain blocks. The newly-described millipedes are helping researchers to assess ecosystem recovery.
One of the newly-described millipedes, Udzungwastreptus marianae, grows to around 3cm and lives in forests above 1,000 meters. Henrik Enghoff, a professor of zoological systematics and zoogeography at the Natural History Museum of Denmark, who has described 69 of the 81 new species found in these mountains, says the genus was given the name Udzungwastrepus to celebrate the Udzungwas’ astonishing biological richness.
U. marianae and other millipedes trundle along the forest floor like miniature locomotives, feeding on dead plant matter and organic debris. “Some of the millipedes had unique features, such as colorful legs or shiny exoskeletons,” says Alain Ngute, a tropical forest ecologist who was part of the team working in the Udzungwa Mountains that collected the millipedes.
Ngute explains that millipedes help to recycle nutrients and maintain soil fertility, and contribute to soil aeration and water retention — all essential for plant growth and forest regeneration.
In areas of degraded forest that have been taken over by thick layers of woody vines known as lianas, the millipedes can indicate that the ecosystem is actually recovering.
“Millipedes can help restore these areas by breaking down the detritus and facilitating the growth of [tree] seedlings and saplings,” says Ngute.
Millipedes weren’t Ngute’s first choice of research subject. He grew up in the western highlands of Cameroon, an experience that he says helped him to forge a strong connection with tropical forests. He was initially interested in researching the impact of forest degradation on bird communities in his home region.
It was only later, while conducting research for a PhD in the Udzungwas that Ngute’s focus shifted from birds to millipedes.
“I was initially reluctant to work with these creatures, as I had some childhood taboos and fears about them,” says Ngute. “However, as I learned more about their ecology and roles in the forest, I gradually became fascinated and intrigued by them.” When Ngute’s PhD supervisor, conservation scientist Andrew Marshall, first started working in Tanzania in the late 1990s, he was shown large areas of damaged forest in another part of the Eastern Arc.
“There were just vines growing over the whole thing,” Marshall recalls. “I hadn’t got a clue what was going on, but was told by people there that they were the disturbed parts of the forest where trees had been cut down [and] the vines had just taken over.”
Lianas, rooted in the ground, resemble large snakes as they coil up tree trunks in rainforests. Beyond that aesthetic appeal, however, they are also parasites that can damage or kill trees. In mid-2007, Marshall set up small vegetation study plots within the Magombera Forest to analyze the recovery rates of areas disturbed by commercial logging decades earlier.
His initial findings suggested that lianas, such as the ubiquitous species known to science as Ucaria africana, and to the local Hehe community as mtonasimba, or “lion’s grasp”, due to its hooked spines, smothered recovering forest patches. This undermined the forest’s ability to regenerate. Half of the plots in the study were managed by cutting lianas with secateurs, and saw a marked improvement in tree growth over five years.
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