Tanzanian wetlands in the cover of Phytocoenologia
After a long process of learning, storing data, collecting publications and statistical assessments, the paper entitled Classification of aquatic and semi-aquatic vegetation in two East African sites: Cocktail definitions and syntaxonomy appeared in volume 47 of the journal Phytocoenologia. This article evaluates vegetation plots from two sites (a Tanzanian site and a Kenyan site) using a supervised classification method (Cocktail) and includes a comprehensive review of previous syntaxonomic work. One of the localities (Kwasunga in Tanzania) appears on the cover of the issue.
Wetland ecosystems provide important services to humans and fulfil essential ecological functions. Syntaxonomic classifications according to species composition and ecological preferences are useful references for monitoring the integrity and assessing the importance of wetlands for conservation purposes.
Although I am the sole author of this article, I was not alone in this journey. I would like to thank Ulrich Deil (University of Freiburg, Germany) for allowing me access to his personal library, Milan Chytrý (University of Brno, Czech Republic) for mentoring me on the hard way of Cocktail, and Jan Roleček (Czech Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic) for his support as editor. I would also like to thank two anonymous reviewers of the manuscript and all the Kenyan and Tanzanian colleagues who supported me during the fieldwork.