Artificial Forest Ecosystems of the UAE Are Hot Spots for Plant Species

Desert and artificial forest ecosystems are important components of the UAE Environment. Additionally, these ecosystems sustain a large number of livestock and wildlife populations. An artificial forest was selected to study some attributes of plant communities. The forest had an area grazed by Arabian Oryx, where the rest was protected from grazing. Soils data showed that soil samples from areas dominated by Acacia tortillis and Prosopis cineraria had the highest levels of Organic Matter (0.78% and 0.75%, respectively) (not a suitable place to put soil analysis here). While soil samples from areas dominated by Ziziphus species recorded the lowest rate of Organic Matter (0.36%). In general terms, grazing resulted in a significant deterioration in species diversity. Shannon-Wiener index value in the protected area (0.67) was greater than in the grazed area (0.46) by 45%. For the chemical analyses and gas production data obtained from the three sampling periods, only four out of the total number of plants has showed high nutritive values.