Phytogeography, ecology and conservation of the genus Limonium (Plumbaginaceae) in Turkey and a taxonomic revision
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Phytogeography, ecology and conservation of the genus Limonium (Plumbaginaceae) in Turkey and a taxonomic revision Musa Doğan1 · Galip Akaydın2 · Jelena Erdal1 Received: 29 March 2019 / Accepted: 4 August 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Austria, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract This article examines the distribution, ecology, and threat categories of the genus Limonium, (Plumbaginaceae) in Turkey. The specimens of Limonium used in this study were either collected during the field excursions carried out in the country over the last 10 years or otherwise stored at various herbaria. Most of the species are locally distributed endemics confined to saline habitats either on the coastal ecosystems of the Mediterranean region or inland salt lakes. They are threatened by excessive grazing, habitat alterations and global warming. A concise taxonomic revision of Limonium in Turkey, covering 27 taxa (25 species and two varieties), is also presented including keys to the species and varieties. So far, three new endemic taxa, Limonium davisii, sp. nov., Limonium lilacinum var. laxiflorum, var. nov., and Limonium globuliferum var. subglobosum, var. nov., are described for the first time. The center of Limonium diversity, according to our survey, lies in the Mediterranean Irano-Turanian region, where 14 endemic taxa (seven of them known from one locality), seven non-endemic rare taxa and six widely distributed taxa are found. We propose that threat categories for the taxa at global level be as follows: seven Critically Endangered (CR), three Endangered (EN), four Vulnerable (VU) and 13 Least Concerned. The threatened species are mainly confined to salty habitats on the coast of Mediterranean or the inland salt lakes. Keywords Conservation · Ecology · Limonium · Phytogeography · Plumbaginaceae · Synopsis
Introduction Biodiversity is in the process of rapid decline under the impact of human activities and climate changes (Pimm et al. 1995; Thomas et al. 2004; Şekercioğlu et al. 2011). How to effectively protect extant species has become a great challenge for conservation biologists. Prior to designing adequate conservation strategies, comprehensive and high-resolution distribution patterns of biodiversity may be Handling Editor: Ricarda Riina. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00606-020-01706-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Musa Doğan [email protected] 1
Department of Biological Sciences, Middle East Technical University, Üniversiteler Mh., Dumlupınar Blv. No:1, 06800 Çankaya/Ankara, Turkey
Department of Biology Education, Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey
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obtained. Data resources such as flora checklists and natural history collections have been increasingly used for this purpose (Myers et al. 2000; Morawetz and Raeding 2007). Turkey is positioned at the nexus of Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa, and it is the only country covered almost entirely by three of the world’
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