Floristic Diversity And Dynamics In The Farasan Islands, Red Sea, Saudi Arabia
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Date
2012-07
Authors
Al-Mutairi, Khalid Awadh
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Universiti Sains Malaysia
Abstract
The current work establishes the first intensive ecological study of Farasan Archipelago concerning the mechanisms and processes of vegetation diversity and composition. The floristic survey was carried out on 20 islands which vary in areas from few square meters to about 381 km2 to analyze the floristic diversity and composition. The analysis identified a total of 191 species belonging to 129 genera and 53 families, with 38 species belonging to the Monocotyledoneae and 153 species to the Dicotyledoneae. The largest family is Poaceae with 27 species, followed by Convolvulaceae, Fabaceae and Capparaceae with 13, 12 and 11 species, respectively. The larger islands such as Farasan Alkabir, Sajid and Zuifaf are more diverse than the small islands such as North Reef, South Reef and Sulyn. About fourteen species are found to be restricted to Farasan archipelago. A comparison of the flora of the current study with that of Saudi Arabia showed a close correlation of taxa and their numbers. Additionally, The study area has one of the highest species-to-area ratios compared to other regional floras of the country. The flora of the study area showed a clear dominance of mono-regional chorotypes (80.1%) represented by the Somali-Masai regional center of endemism (34.7%) and the Saharo-Sindian regional zone (45.44%). The latter chorotype included the Nubo-Sindian local center of endemism (27.17%) and the Arabian regional subzone (18.27%). These results support the view that the flora of western and southern Arabia represent a phytogeographical link between eastern Africa and South Asia.
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Keywords
Floristic diversity and dynamics , in the Farasan Islands