Microhabitats Affect Population Size and Plant Vigor of Three Critically Endangered Endemic Plants in Southern Sinai Mountains, Egypt | Land Portal

Resource information

Date of publication: 
June 2019
Resource Language: 
ISBN / Resource ID: 
10.3390/land8060086
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Copyright details: 
© 2019 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article.

Endemic species on mountains often have narrow altitudinal ranges and are more threatened at the higher altitudes, especially with climate changes. However, plants could use special microhabitats at the mountain tops as proper places for surviving the climate change (i.e., refugia). We assessed population attributes of three critically endangered endemic species (Primula boveana Decne ex Duby, Rosa arabica Crep., and Silene leucophylla Boiss.) in two growing seasons (2006/2007 and 2013/2014), differing in the received rainfalls in microhabitats at the high mountains of southern Sinai. Both P. boveana and S. leucophylla had very small population size, but significantly increased in the 2013/2014 growing season which received above average rainfalls. The population of R. arabica is the smallest (around 40 individuals) and did not increase, even after the increase in rainfalls. Whereas P. boveana is present in fewer sites and grew in small number of specific microhabitats, both S. leucophylla and R. arabica were recorded in most studied sites and habitat types. Unlike R. arabica, both P. boveana and S. leucophylla were recorded in caves and steep slopes and on the top of the mountains. This indicates that these sheltered mist microhabitats are the best for future conservation of these species after climate change.

Authors and Publishers

Author(s), editor(s), contributor(s): 

Fakhry, M. Amal
El-Keblawy, Ali
Shabana, A. Hatem
Gamal, E. Ibrahim
Shalouf, Amir

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