In the face of the current changes in landuse and climate as well as habitat destruction, it isimportant to study herbaceous vegetation as anindicator of changes occurring in savanna ecosys-tems. We investigated the effects of climate, landuse and habitat, both alone and in combination, onthe diversity and occurrence of West African sa-vanna herbaceous plant communities. Floristic data and environmental variables were sampled in Burkina Faso and subjected to ordination and in-dicator species analysis to explore the variation innine vegetation types. Regression analyses showed that climate, land use, humidity gradient, soil frac-tion and vegetation structure discriminate herba-ceous plant communities. Climate, habitat and the irinteraction had the greatest effect on the occur-rence of these communities. Changes in speciesrichness of the studied communities were mainlydue to climate, land use and their interaction,which were more important for increasing ratherthan decreasing diversity. In all cases, climate con-ditions remained the most important environmentalfactor driving vegetation variation in West African savannas. Beside this, the effects of habitat degra-dation in interaction with land use and climaticconditions indicate land use to be a threat for thediversity of the herbaceous vegetation.

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• Diversity and occurrence of herbaceous communities in West African savannas in relation to climate, land use and habitat