determination of plants; it can be used in the field on laptop computers and also for
the training of students before travel in tropical regions. In 2017, the collection
included 27,100 images of 288 families, 1,855 genera and 4,215 species.
In 1990, we could study the elevational gradient not only on the tropical high
volcano peaks of Mt Kenya and Mt Elgon but also in one of the rather untouched
rainforests at Kakamega. Former co-workers of the Department of Ecology later
participated in the large BIOTA consortium, where not only the dry vegetation
gradients in Namibia and South Africa were studied but also (BIOTA-East) the
area of the Kakamega Forest (1,460–1,760 m) in Western Kenya. Dalitz et al. (2011)
provided basic data and a very valuable field guide on the woody plants of the area,
with about 300 species of trees, shrubs, lianas and palms, indicating the high
biodiversity but also the threats of logging and firewood collecting.
7.2 Afghanistan
Studying biodiversity in an arid country is another endeavour. After many years, in
2005, work on Afghan flora and ecology could be resumed after more than 30 years
of war and destruction. It became my second home after 3 years of work, studies and
teaching there. In Bielefeld, together with Clas Naumann (also infected by the
“Afghanistan virus”, but as a zoologist), we were able to organize an interesting
symposium (Breckle and Naumann 1982) at a really bad time for the country after
the Soviet occupation.
In the continental semi-desert of Afghanistan, the cold winters and the hot
summers force plants and animals to use the underground. In the Dashte-Kushi,
south of Kabul, we had an interesting phenomenon to observe (Breckle 1971). There
were small anthills, sometimes only an opening and an underground nest of ants
(Cataglyphis bicolor). Around them there were large circles devoid of vegetation but
surrounded by a ring, about 4–6 m in diameter, of a therophytic flora rich in species
and with distinctly favoured growth. In this belt, N and P content was distinctly
higher than in samples from outside the belt. The additional source of nutrients is
the underground waste chambers of the ants (garbage zone). Another ring, located
outside the garbage zone, poor in small stones, shows vegetation more negatively
influenced by the plant- and seed-collecting activity of the ants. This myrmecophilous dissemination varies within different plant species. In the course of several
years, there evolves a typical weedy plant community, exhibiting the changed
availability of nutrients and water. We saw a rather similar mosaic of plant-free
rings later in Arizona, caused by ants (Pogonomyrmex). From Namibia, recently
several papers described a similar pattern (called “fairy circles”), most probably
caused by underground termites (Tarnita et al. 2017) as a multi-scale patterning.
Exactly at Christmas 1979, the Soviet troop invasion in Afghanistan started. Field
research had been blocked for a few years even before then because of internal unrest
and turmoil. After many years of war and destruction in Afghanistan, and after
terrible civil war times, many of our old coloured slides of landscapes and plants
Vegetation, Climate and Soil: 50 Years of Global Ecology
43
the training of students before travel in tropical regions. In 2017, the collection
included 27,100 images of 288 families, 1,855 genera and 4,215 species.
In 1990, we could study the elevational gradient not only on the tropical high
volcano peaks of Mt Kenya and Mt Elgon but also in one of the rather untouched
rainforests at Kakamega. Former co-workers of the Department of Ecology later
participated in the large BIOTA consortium, where not only the dry vegetation
gradients in Namibia and South Africa were studied but also (BIOTA-East) the
area of the Kakamega Forest (1,460–1,760 m) in Western Kenya. Dalitz et al. (2011)
provided basic data and a very valuable field guide on the woody plants of the area,
with about 300 species of trees, shrubs, lianas and palms, indicating the high
biodiversity but also the threats of logging and firewood collecting.
7.2 Afghanistan
Studying biodiversity in an arid country is another endeavour. After many years, in
2005, work on Afghan flora and ecology could be resumed after more than 30 years
of war and destruction. It became my second home after 3 years of work, studies and
teaching there. In Bielefeld, together with Clas Naumann (also infected by the
“Afghanistan virus”, but as a zoologist), we were able to organize an interesting
symposium (Breckle and Naumann 1982) at a really bad time for the country after
the Soviet occupation.
In the continental semi-desert of Afghanistan, the cold winters and the hot
summers force plants and animals to use the underground. In the Dashte-Kushi,
south of Kabul, we had an interesting phenomenon to observe (Breckle 1971). There
were small anthills, sometimes only an opening and an underground nest of ants
(Cataglyphis bicolor). Around them there were large circles devoid of vegetation but
surrounded by a ring, about 4–6 m in diameter, of a therophytic flora rich in species
and with distinctly favoured growth. In this belt, N and P content was distinctly
higher than in samples from outside the belt. The additional source of nutrients is
the underground waste chambers of the ants (garbage zone). Another ring, located
outside the garbage zone, poor in small stones, shows vegetation more negatively
influenced by the plant- and seed-collecting activity of the ants. This myrmecophilous dissemination varies within different plant species. In the course of several
years, there evolves a typical weedy plant community, exhibiting the changed
availability of nutrients and water. We saw a rather similar mosaic of plant-free
rings later in Arizona, caused by ants (Pogonomyrmex). From Namibia, recently
several papers described a similar pattern (called “fairy circles”), most probably
caused by underground termites (Tarnita et al. 2017) as a multi-scale patterning.
Exactly at Christmas 1979, the Soviet troop invasion in Afghanistan started. Field
research had been blocked for a few years even before then because of internal unrest
and turmoil. After many years of war and destruction in Afghanistan, and after
terrible civil war times, many of our old coloured slides of landscapes and plants
Vegetation, Climate and Soil: 50 Years of Global Ecology
43