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Diversity and responses of plant functional groups to soil variables in the arid desert landscape of southern Egypt

Research Authors
Fawzy Salama
Monier Abd El-Ghani
Mohamed Gadallah
Salah El-Naggar
Ahmed Amro
Research Abstract

This paper aims to recognize the distribution patterns of the functional groups in the studied transects, and to assess the relationships between soil parameters that determine the distribution of these functional groups (FGs) in the study area. A floristic-count list was taken from 142 stands to represent the floristic composition four transects in the study area. The recorded taxa were classified according to four functional groups (trees, shrubs, perennial herbs and annual herbs). The species diversity was calculated as the Shannon-Wiener index and species richness. A set of 94 species, belonging to 33 families, classified according to their spectrum of growth forms to annual herbs, perennial herbs, shrubs (included sub-shrubs) and trees. The dominant FGs (shrubs and annual herbs) were concentrated in transects T3 and T4. The trees were distributed between T1, T3 and T4. Canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) biplots elucidated the differences in responses to environmental gradients between functional groups in the study area. The species diversity indices correlations with the soil gradients showed a significant correlation between the coarse sand and trees diversity. However, water content was significantly affected the annual herbs diversity. The perennial herbs diversity showed significant correlations with 11 soil variables.

Research Journal
Journal of Biodiversity and Ecological Sciences
Research Publisher
NULL
Research Rank
1
Research Vol
Vol. 5, Issue 1
Research Website
NULL
Research Year
2016
Research Pages
24 - 39