Effect of geographical direction of slope on plant diversity indices in the Astraglaus shrubland of Nazluchai, West Azerbaijan

Sheidai-Karkaj, Esmaeil; Jahantab, Esfandiar; Motamedi, Javad; Mofidi-Chelan, Morteza

[Home ] [Archive]

[ فارسی ]

Main Menu

Home

Journal Information

Articles archive

For Authors

For Reviewers

Registration

Contact us

Site Facilities

Search in website

Receive site information

Volume 11, Issue 22 (9-2023)

PEC 2023, 11(22): 49-63

Back to browse issues page

Effect of geographical direction of slope on plant diversity indices in the Astraglaus shrubland of Nazluchai, West Azerbaijan

Esmaeil Sheidai-Karkaj ^*

, Esfandiar Jahantab²

, Javad Motamedi³

, Morteza Mofidi-Chelan⁴

Department of Range and Watershed Management, Faculty of Natural Resources, Urmia University, Urmia, Iran, Department of Range and Watershed Management, Faculty of Natural Resources, Urmia University, Urmia, Iran , esmaeil_sheidayi@yahoo.com
2- Department of Range and Watershed Management, Faculty of Agriculture, Fasa University, Fasa, Iran
3- Rangeland Research Division, Research Institute of Forests and Rangelands, Agricultural Research Education and Extension Organization (AREEO), Tehran, Iran
4- Department of Range and Watershed Management, Faculty of Natural Resources, Urmia University, Urmia, Iran

Abstract: (1843 Views)

Awareness of biodiversity status is one of the requirements for adopting a conservation approach in rangelands ecosystems. In this regard, the present research was conducted in order to investigate the effect of slope direction on the values of plant diversity indices in the Astraglaus shrubland of Nazluchai region in 2017. For this purpose, in total, with the use of 230 sample plots of one square meter, which were placed at a distance of five meters from each other, along 50-meter transects; the crown cover percentage of plant species were collected in each of the main directions of the range (eight northern directions, five southern directions, five eastern directions and five western directions). Then, with the PAST software, the most important and widely used indicators of species diversity (Margalef, Taxa, Menhinick and Berger-Parker as species richness indices, Dominance, evenness, Simpson and Pielo as species evenness indices, Shannon and Brillouin as heterogeneity indicators) were calculated. Finally, using the one-way analysis of variance method, statistical comparison of the averages was carried out. The results showed; A total of 41 plant species were identified in the studied areas, and Margalef, Taxa, Shannon, Brillouin and Fisher's Alpha indices had a significant difference at the five percent level in different geographical directions. So that the highest value of these indices was related to the western direction, respectively 2.55, 12.2, 2.1, 1.88 and 4.05. Simpson's, Menhenik's, Dominance, evenness, Pielo and Berger-Parker indices were also not significantly different from each other in different directions. Although the two western and southern aspects were significantly different from each other regarding most of the indicators, nevertheless, the clustering results of the plant composition of the sites classified these two domains in one cluster with high similarity rate (around 70%). This finding indicates that the diversity indices are not able to provide information about the plant composition and should pay attention to the plant composition when using these indices. Finally, it should be mentioned that although Margalef, Taxa, Shannon, Brillouin and Fisher's alpha indices were able to separate the sites, but the proposal of using these indices in the monitoring plans of rangleands with the dominance of Astragulus microcephalus species in the northwest of the country, requires another researches.

Article number: 4

Keywords: Biodiversity, Ecosystem dynamics, Dominance, Evenness, Urmia

Full-Text [PDF 623 kb] (321 Downloads)

Type of Study: Research | Subject: Special
Received: 2022/09/13 | Accepted: 2023/04/21 | Published: 2023/09/22

References

1. Aerz, M., Zayed. A. 1996. Effect of environment factors on the flora of alluvial fans southern Sina. Journal of Arid Environment, 32: 431-443.

2. Badano, E. I., Cavieres, L. A., Molinga-Montenegro. M. A., Quiroz, C. L. 2005. Slope aspect influences plant association patterns in the Mediterranean natural of central Chile. Journal of Arid Environments, 62(1): 93-108.

3. Bengtsson, J., Nilsson, S.G., Franc A., Menozzi, P. 2000. Biodiversity, disturbances, ecosystem functions and management of European forests. Forest Ecology and Management, 132(1): 39-50.

4. Cowling. R. M., Lombard, A.T. 2002. Heterogeneity, Speciation/Extinction History and Climate: Explaining Regional Plant Diversity Patterns in the Cape Floristic Region. Diversity and Distributions, 8(3): 163-179.

5. Daws, M. I., Mullins, C. E., Burslem, D. F. R. P., Paton, S. R., Dalling, J. W. 2002. Topographic position affects the water regime in a semideciduous tropical forest in Panamá. Plant Soil, 238(1): 79–89.

6. Enright, N.J., Miller, B.P., Akhtar. R. 2005. Desert vegetation and vegetation-environment relationships in Kirthar National Park, Sindh, Pakistan. Journal of Arid Environments, 61(3): 397- 418.

7. Filazzola, A. and Cahill Jr, J.F. 2021. Replication in field ecology: Identifying challenges and proposing solutions. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 12(10): 1780-1792.

8. Ghafari, S., Ghorbani, A., Moameri, M., Mostafazadeh, R., Bidarlord, M. 2018. Composition and structure of species along altitude gradient in Moghan-Sabalan rangelands, Iran. Journal of Mountain Science, 15(6): 1209-1228.

9. Hamilton, A.J. 2005. Species diversity or biodiversity?. Journal of Environmental Management, 75(1): 89-92.

10. Hegazy, A. K., EL-Demedesh, M. A., Hosni, H. A. 1998. Vegetation species diversity and floristic relations along an altitudinal gradient in southwest Saudi Arabia. Journal of Arid Environment, 3: 3-13.

11. Holland, P.G., Steyn, D. G. 1975. Vegetational responses to latitudinal variations in slope angle and aspect. J. Biogeogr. 2: 179–183.

12. Hutchings, M. J. 1983. Plant Diversity in Four Chalk Grassland Sites with Different Aspects. Plant Ecology (Historical Archive), 53(3): 179-189.

13. Jiang, Y., Kang, M., Zhuand, Y., Ku, G. 2007. Plant biodiversity patterns on Helan Mountain, China. Acta Oecologica, 32: 125-133.

14. Jucker, T., Bongalov, B., Burslem, D.F., Nilus, R., Dalponte, M., Lewis, S.L., Phillips, O.L., Qie, L., Coomes, D.A. 2018. Topography shapes the structure, composition and function of tropical forest landscapes. Ecology letters, 21(7): 989-1000.

15. Kaya, Z., Raynal D. J. 2001. Biodiversity and conservation of Turkish forests. Biological conservation, 97(2): 131-141.

16. Krebs, C.J., 2001. Ecology. Benjamin Cummings Sanfransisco. Fifth Ed. 384 p.

17. Magurran, A.E. 1988. Ecological Diversity and its Measurement. By Princeton University Press, New Jersey. 179p.

18. Magurran, A.E. 2004. Measuring biological diversity. Blackwell Scientific, Oxford, 322 p.

19. Moeslund, J. E., Arge, L., Bøcher, P. K., Dalgaard, T., Svenning, J. 2013. Topography as a driver of local terrestrial vascular plant diversity patterns. Nordic Journal of Botany, 31(2): 129–144.

20. Namgail, T., Rawat, G.S., Mishravan, C., Wieren, S.E., Prins, H.H. 2012. Biomass and diversity of dry alpine plant communities along altitudinal gradients in the Himalayas. Journal of Plant Research, 125(1): 93-101.

21. Nodehi, N., Akbarlou, M., Sepehry, A., Vahid, H. 2015. Investigation of Stability and Relationships between Species Diversity Indices and Topographical Factors (Case Study: Ghorkhud Mountainous Rangeland, Northern Khorasan Province, Iran). Journal of Rangeland Science, 5(3): 192-201.

22. Noor Alhamad, M. 2006. Ecological and species diversity of arid Mediterranean grazing land vegetation, Journal of Arid Environments, 66: 698–715.

23. Small, Ch. J., McCarthy, B.C. 2005. Relationship of understory diversity to soil nitrogen, topographic variation, and stand age in an eastern oak forest, USA Forest Ecology and Management, 217(2/3): 229-243.

24. Tillman, D., Adowing, J. 1994. Biodiversity and stability in Grasslands. Nature Journal, 197(6461): 363-365.

25. Wang, C.H., Tang, L., Fei., S.F., Wang, J.Q., Gao, Y., Wang, Q., Chen, J.K., Li, B. 2009. Determinants of seed bank dynamics of two dominant helophytes in a tidal salt marsh. Ecological Engineering, 35: 800-809.

26. Yuter, S., Stark, D., Crouch, J. 2011. The impact of varying environmental conditions on the spatial and temporal Patterns of Orographic precipitation over the Pacific Northwest near Portland, Oregon. Journal of Atmospheric sciences, 12: 329-354.

Send email to the article author

Add your comments about this article

Mendeley

Zotero

RefWorks

Sheidai-Karkaj E, Jahantab E, Motamedi J, Mofidi-Chelan M. Effect of geographical direction of slope on plant diversity indices in the Astraglaus shrubland of Nazluchai, West Azerbaijan. PEC 2023; 11 (22) : 4
URL: http://pec.gonbad.ac.ir/article-1-879-en.html

Rights and permissions
	This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Volume 11, Issue 22 (9-2023)

Back to browse issues page

Persian site map - English site map - Created in 0.06 seconds with 37 queries by YEKTAWEB 4710