Therefore climate change is one of the major factors affecting the existence of Quiver trees and the Quiver tree would be affected by long term climatic changes. Previous observations show that Quiver trees are very sensitive to environmental changes, and do not respond well to extreme hot and dry conditions. Presently, the conservation of Quiver trees is not only threatened by agricultural expansion, overgrazing, and mining but also by climate changes and droughts. In this paper, we assess the current status of the Quiver tree within its existing environment, and also assess the projected future changes of the Quiver tree under different climatic scenarios.įigure 2. Foden’s detailed research of the demographic data of the Quiver trees demonstrates that negligible recruitment has occurred in some populations for 50 years, and the effects of non-climatic variables, such as seed availability, herbivory, competition, and fungal pathogens, are very small. The Quiver tree is essential to the local ecosystem and environment, because it is a source of moisture for a wide variety of mammals, birds and insects. It is a base species within its distribution, and is adapted to survive very dry conditions and stores water in its trunk, branches and leaves. The Quiver tree can grow up to 9 meters tall, and it has a 200 year life span ( Figure 2). ĭue to the fact that the succulent plants has special water-storing tissue which makes part of the plant fleshy, therefore succulents are able to survive long periods of drought conditions. dichotoma has an average life span that is estimated between a hundred and two hundred and fifty years. The Quiver tree has succulent leaf and stem, and this succulent tree species lives in dry rocky areas and can grow quite rapidly under the right conditions. This tree belongs to the genus Aloe and family Asphodelaceae, formerly Liliaceae. Īloe dichotoma (common name Quiver tree) occurs in the arid regions of Namaqualand and Bushman land in South Africa, and in arid regions of southern Namibia ( Figure 1). Even a few degrees increase in temperature and a few millimeters of decrease in rainfall could cause a decline in the biodiversity of plants and animals in the arid regions. This makes conservation and management of our ecosystem more difficult as not only we face prolonged droughts in Africa we also have problems of land transformation and deforestation. Just north of Nieuwoudtville in the Northern Cape, there is a farm that boasts the largest Quiver tree forest in the Southern Hemisphere.As the recent debates on climate change continues over the Anthropocene hypothesis on whether human activities and has a global impact on the Earth’s atmosphere and geological processes, and whether the Antarctic ice are increasing or decreasing, there is no doubt that we as humans have forever changed the planet Earth and its ecosystem. There are however a few exceptions to the rule. Normally, due to the arid environment where they survive, Quiver trees stand alone, on rocky outcrops or as sentinels breaking the monotony of the desert sands. It’s probably one of our best known aloes with its sculptural form, spectacularly patterned bark of golden scales, and the dense crown, formed by repeatedly forked branches (hence the species name dichotoma - dichotomous means forked). They are indigenous to Southern Africa, specifically found in the Northern Cape Richtersveld region and the Namib desert around the South African-Namibian border. The Quiver tree is a tall branching species of succulent plant - it’s not actually a tree at all. In Afrikaans, its known as the Kokerboom. Known as choje to the indigenous San people, the Quiver tree gets its English common name from the San people’s practice of hollowing out the tubular branches to form quivers for their arrows.
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